


Bittersweet and Strange, Finding You Can Change

by chinchillasinunison



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Curses, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, They/Them Pronouns for Fujisaki Chihiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27431074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinchillasinunison/pseuds/chinchillasinunison
Summary: A prince, a bear, a curse, a beast. A tale as old as time, albeit a bit twisted. And Kiyotaka somehow ends up tangled in the middle of it, when all he wanted in the world was to study in peace and keep his father safe.
Relationships: Ishimaru Kiyotaka/Oowada Mondo
Comments: 64
Kudos: 200





	1. Prologue: Diamonds in Stained Glass

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived two princes in a castle that sparkled like gemstones, surrounded by a dark wood. These young men were the crown jewels of their kingdom, so much so that they were known as The Diamond Brothers. And though both were beloved, the nature of royalty and popular opinion favored the eldest son, Daiya. The younger Diamond Brother, Mondo, though not resentful, still held in his heart a flickering ember of envy towards him and a desire to prove himself of matching worth.

One dreary night, the queen quietly passed away, and Daiya's coronation was scheduled in half a year's time. On the eve of his crowning, as the castle staff hustled to ready the celebration, Mondo proposed one final friendly competition between the two of them, on the last day that they were equals. A race on horseback through the woodlands surrounding the castle, whoever reached the village beyond them won, he stipulated. Daiya agreed.

One may assume this was a fairly easy task, but the forest was bewitched. Its trees were pitch black and gnarled, teeming with all sorts of unsavory creatures, and on occasion the path set within it would twist in bizarre ways. It was unreliable as a riding path, so the journey was often made without consulting it at all. The brothers knew these woods well, for despite its dangers it was their playground since childhood.

The Diamond Brothers set out. The hooves of their steeds pounded hard and fast against the earth. Both were gifted riders, so they had to hone their focus expertly to be victorious.

Daiya broke through the brush first, breathing in the crisp air of the fields bordering the woodlands. _What a fun ride,_ he thought, _I'll miss these sorts of games when I'm king..._

He waited several minutes for Mondo to arrive. He would clap him hard on the back, perhaps give him a noogie while scolding him for being late, and joke that this was why he was the one taking the throne.

But Mondo was nowhere to be seen.

Protective older sibling instincts kicked in. Daiya charged back into the forest, searching for signs of his missing baby brother. He spied on a snarl of brambles a scrap of cloth, no doubt a piece of Mondo's clothes. He had to yank his reins quickly for hidden right behind these brambles was a sudden drop into a clearing. At its bottom was his brother's horse, severely injured from the fall, and Mondo himself. But there was a third party that made Daiya's blood run cold.

It was a bear. A massive bear, far more massive than any bear should be. It had an unusual coloration, black and white split right down the middle, with red eyes that burned with hellfire. There was no doubt in his mind: his brother had crossed into the domain of a malevolent fae. And, as Mondo lay there defenseless and wide-eyed with fear, the spirit raised its giant paw, primed to slash him to ribbons with claws the size of claymores.

Daiya forced his steed down the steep cliff side and jumped off of it, directly in the path of the beast's downswing.

"DAIYA, NO!"

Mondo's plea was far too late. The grass around them stained with blood as his brother crumpled to the ground. Mondo dragged him into his arms.

"J-Jesus Christ, I f-fucked up real bad," stuttered the dying Daiya, "I was s'posed to keep you safe. As a--" He coughed up more blood, "--king, you're s'posed to protect your people. Sorry."

"No, no, don't say that! You did protect me! I'm the one who fucked up! This is all my goddamn fault!"

Daiya seemed to be looking for Mondo's eyes, but couldn't quite find them, so he just stared into the open air.

"Hey. The rest is up to you now, kid. Promise me that you'll take care of them."

He squeezed his hand. "I p-promise…"

In a few moments, life faded from Daiya. When the weight of what just occurred set in, Mondo screamed at the top of his lungs-- a guttural, animalistic noise of sorrow that rang through the wilderness. He buried his face into the stilled blood-soaked chest, sobbing. Meanwhile, the bear grinned devilishly and drew closer to the surviving prince, its form starting to shift.

After what seemed like hours, Mondo drew his face away, covered in hot pink like a sticky, iron-scented coat of paint. The shock and rage had drained from, and now he said in a cold, lifeless tone, "I-- I did this. I challenged him to a race that cost him his life. I... k-killed him."

His head slumped forward.

"I'm a monster."

"Well!" a feminine voice replied brightly out of the blue, "That can be arranged!"

He bolted upright and standing before him was a beautiful and wicked enchantress.

"What? Who the hell are you?"

"They call me Junko, Queen of Despair!" she said, holding her head high, a crown suddenly appearing on top of it.

She shifted to a melancholy expression, mushrooms springing up around the crown. "Well, they don't really call me that, because there is no 'they.' I've been bound to this forest for who knows how long. Centuries, I think. It's been so _boring_ , only breaking the spirits of animals and lost travelers..."

The sky above seemed to match her new gloomy mood, filling with gray clouds. Then she shifted again, now sporting spectacles. "But not anymore. See, I planned to just kill you and swallow up that jolt of heartbreak on your sudden death, but then your brother swooped in and made things far more interesting…"

"Interesting?! You bitch! He's dead!" His hold on the corpse tightened protectively.

Her glasses disappeared, and now she had no expression at all. It began to rain. "Exactly, and you've fallen right into my clutches, into despair. You've forfeited yourself to me, dear prince, and your home with it. And I know just how I'll maintain that despair and feed myself for years to come."

"What the fuck are you talking about?!"

"I'm placing a curse on you and your castle, obviously." She said with a roll of her eyes. "With certain conditions to break it, of course, because a tiny sliver of hope makes despair all the more bitter. And I think your suggestion will do nicely-- it makes it all the more ironic."

He didn't care about what she was saying anymore. Her blatant lack of respect for the dead or seemingly anything else filled him with fury. He launched to his feet.

"LISTEN! I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE A FAIRY OR A MAGIC SHE-BEAR OR WHATEVER THE HELL! YOU'RE PISSING ME OFF AND I'M GONNA KICK YOUR--"

Junko made devil's signs with both of her hands and crossed her arms. A bolt of lightning erupted from the heavens, striking the prince. Mondo's entire body was engulfed in burning, white-hot pain, forcing him to the ground. His vision blurred and distorted as the world spun around him. His melting flesh dribbled down his frame and into a puddle before sculpting itself into an entirely different shape.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the enchantress was gone, leaving a monstrous figure sitting within a circle of scorched earth, trying desperately to make sense of the encounter. Even years later, the events of that day still stung the beast like an open wound. Within his castle he spent his time wondering, lingering, regretting, waiting… and, upon a certain someone's advice, hoping. Hoping for a certain someone to come along...


	2. It's a Quiet Village

Kiyotaka rose promptly at 7 o'clock, as he did every morning. He greeted his father and told him he would be heading to the bookshop. Again, as always. As he walked into town, he found himself musing about the routine of it all, reveling in the comfort of repetition.

_Every morning is just the same as the morning that we came to this poor, provincial town… great!_

It was the only comfort he could take in the situation, really-- that everything would be exactly the same, so he could study with a consistent schedule. That also meant that those catty whispers from his fellow villagers were also consistent.

"Is that the Ishimaru kid? Wasn't his grandfather a baron or something?"

"I think it was a duke…"

"Why does he keep making that face?"

"Because he thinks he's better than us, obviously..."

Like every other morning, he tried his best to ignore them.

When he made it to the bookshop, he found the text he began the previous day and hunkered down in one of the few chairs. He was thankful that the shopkeeper let him do this rather than pester him to buy something, but whether that was out of politeness or disguised distaste he couldn't really tell.

One may assume that as a creature of habit, Kiyotaka was not ambitious. In truth, the cycle he played out was in service of his ambition, which he had in ample amounts. One couldn't rebuild a family reputation without hard work, after all.

The Ishimarus were, indeed, distant royalty. His grandfather had been a duke, once upon (yet another) time, but he caused such a great scandal that he was stripped of his title. So disgraced was he that they were forced to settle into this far-flung village, their assets bone dry. Even now, with his grandfather resting amongst his fellow dirt and miry earthworms, his actions haunted Taka and his father like a specter. Upon that tender soil of a potter's field Kiyotaka plotted the foundations for his future.

After hours of study, Taka grew peckish. He resolved to buy himself a quick morsel from the market to satiate his appetite. It was late autumn, so apples were still in season and very cheap. He marched back out into the hustle and bustle of the unpaved village streets. Browsing about, he found a produce stand with a bushel and paid his due. As he planted himself on the rim of the square's fountain to enjoy his break, a musket shot tore through the atmosphere. Seconds later, a goose fell into the fountain, splashing him and turning the water around it pink as it settled at the bottom.

A hand dipped into the water, dragging the bird's corpse out by the neck.

"Good day, Ms. Ikusaba," he greeted without even having to turn around.

"Good day to you too," she responded quietly, tersely, as a good soldier should.

Mukuro Ikusaba was a well-known and respected individual. She was a war hero, and a renowned one at that. Rumor had it that in all her time on the front lines, she never got a scratch on her. Taka doubted that-- such a feat was superhuman, and she was certainly human. He could tell some damage had to have slipped somewhere into her psyche. Why else did she hunt so often when she was not in need of food, if not to fill some other void?

But he wasn't in the business of speculation, he was in the business of academic pursuit, so he pushed that musing out of his mind as she melded back into the crowd. He finished his snack and went back to the bookshop, studying until the afternoon rolled around. He headed home to join his father for dinner.

"How was your day, father?" He asked as they ate, "Have you gained any new employment?"

Due to their reputation, Taka's father couldn't hold a regular, steady job. He ended up doing odds and ends around the village for whoever was willing to pay, even if it wasn't much.

"A farmer on the outskirts of the village hired me as a lookout tonight. There's been something terrorizing their fields, maiming the livestock, and I'll be shooting it down tonight. It's probably a wolf or a bear, but some have witnessed a person involved."

"A person?"

"I wouldn't entertain it. The accounts that do say that refer to her as some legendary woman of the woods who feeds off suffering. Just an old wives' tale you tell a child so they don't go out alone at night. So, what about you?"

"Nothing of note."

His father hummed in a hollow way.

He wrangled for some subject of interest. "I saw Mukuro. Her kill fell into the fountain and splashed me, and I think she got goose blood on my apple."

He nodded. "Respectable girl."

"Really? I thought it was fairly rude."

"I mean, status-wise."

He gave a small nod. "Yes, I suppose in that way, she is."

He scooped up more watery soup and let it slide down his throat.

His father pushed the subject. "I've heard there were talks of her being nominated for lordship. Now those are rumors I could believe, given her achievements."

Taka swallowed and placed his spoon back into the bowl. "I don't see how that's relevant to us."

"Well, you are of marrying age…"

The suggestion made his heart pang, even when it was only implied.

"With all due respect, father, I will earn a title from my own merits, or not at all! It's as simple as that!"

His voice was loud, but it wasn't true shouting, just him trying to make himself heard. Takaaki knew his son well enough that he wouldn't raise his voice in turn.

"I admire your determination, but I'm trying to be realistic."

"It's not as if I'm wishing on a star. I have a plan, you know that. I'll apply to a university and claw my way to the top through effort alone. I'll become a scholar so revered the Ishimaru name will be wiped clean. And that is a promise!"

A long pause followed, and the two continued eating. Kiyotaka thought that the matter had been dropped, but once he finished and stood to retire to his room, his father spoke out.

"Taka..."

He lingered by his chair, alert and face stony, waiting respectfully for him to continue.

Takaaki grinned a little despite himself. "You know, when I see you like that, with that steely, burning gaze, sometimes... I can't help but think…"

The sentence faded again, the words failing to formulate. He started cleaning up his place at the table. Given how others treated him due to his father's actions, he was a very anxious man, not one to show his feelings easily lest they be used against him. He took his dishware to the kitchen sink, his son tracking him.

"I have my reservations, but… if anyone _could_ do it, it would be you..."

Taka smiled and gave his father a tight embrace from behind.

"I'll be heading out soon," Takaaki said, turning to face him, "I should be back by tomorrow afternoon at the latest."

His son's usually stern expression was relaxed. "See you then."

Meanwhile, in the west wing of a dark castle, a crystal ball sat upon a table in a wrecked bedroom. It lit up a bright yellow, and within the light a man's face appeared, his chin dashed with stubble and the hair that could be seen sprung out into wild dreadlocks.

"Hey, I got a new prediction for ya!"

A voice growled from the shadows, "I don't wanna hear it."

"Nah, I'm sure of this one, for serious! It's not like those other times! Somebody's coming tonight!"

The hulking figure stopped, considered.

"Do… do ya think…?"

"Well, it depends… are you into older guys?"


	3. Massive Paws, Killer Claws

Takaaki stood against the fence post, watching the farmer's flock. He had hoped that he would be provided with something with a little more firepower if he was to face some ravenous creature, but the property owner had nothing of the sort. He had to make due with his flintlock pistol. The odds were stacked against him so high they could tumble over and crush him-- a feeling so familiar he might even call it an old friend.

The night air was crisp and cold. It bit into Takaaki's flesh with needle-like teeth. He shivered and coughed occasionally, the weather stirring up some latent illness. The sheep, with all their wool, slept soundly on the fields. Lucky.

The sky was overcast, dulling the moonlight considerably and making his job all the harder. Everything was basically in silhouette. The darkness, combined with the lateness of the hour and lack of notable activity, made it difficult to keep his eyes open.

He didn't fall asleep. He just nodded his head for a moment, just a moment. It was practically just a blink.

The agonized bawls of a ewe ripped his eyelids back open.

He saw _it_ . She? No, it. Even if that looked like a person in pigtails hunched over the gutted, still living animal, he couldn't live in a world where something as terrible as _that_ was a she.

He blinked again, and it was gone, the bushes bordering the woodlands rustling.

Takaaki gave chase.

The twisted branches of the forest canopy swallowing up the sky made visibility even worse. But he kept soldiering on, finger primed on the trigger. Leaves crunched under unseen legs.

They were caught in a shaft of moonlight. Before him stood a wolf with charcoal fur and steel gray eyes, its muzzle mottled. Its ear swiveled in one way, to a sound undetectable to a human. It snarled and pounced at him, snapping its jaws. He rolled to dodge, forcing a violent fit of coughs out of his lungs. Taking advantage of his vulnerable position on the ground, the wolf jumped at him again. In the nick of time, he picked up his pistol and held it sideways so the only thing the animal bit down on was the barrel. They tussled before it let go and ran further into the forest.

High on adrenaline and a feeling of righteousness, he pursued it into the shadows. Still, something about the scenario didn't sit quite right with him. This… thing, whatever it was, could have taken care of him just as it had that sheep. But, no, the only injuries he sustained were bruises and slashes from the scuffle. It was as if it was teasing him, as if it wanted to keep him alive as it lured him deeper and deeper into the woods…

Then, he stumbled his way out of the thicket and into the obscurity of a large, mysterious castle. It was in a state of disrepair, stone walls surrounding it covered in dead foliage, and the heavy iron gate hung suspiciously open, squealing slightly in the wind. Looking upon the ground, he saw what could have been paw prints in the dirt.

His grip on his gun tightened and he coughed into his fist. He was going to end this.

He pushed open the door to the castle and shut the night air out behind him. Upon a table by the entrance sat an unlit candle, and he pawed at the tabletop to find a match. He felt something small and ceramic, a metal box, and convex glass before he eventually found a matchbox. The flame upon the wick dripped light around him, illuminating the items on the table. Closest to the door was a maneki-neko, white with black and light brown spots and a sculpted cowlick, by where the candle stood before was a magnifying glass, and on the farthest side was a green lockbox, silver key sitting in its keyhole.

After briefly wondering who would be careless enough to leave a lockbox right by the front door, he swept the candle about the room.

"Hello? Is anyone home?"

He fell into another coughing fit. On the tail of it, he heard a faint, haughty whisper.

"Ridiculous. Why are we wasting our time here? He's obviously not the one we need…"

He glanced in the voice's supposed direction, only to be met with the table of objects again.

He must've imagined it. Yes, of course. He'd heard vile babble from so many mouths over the years that it soaked into his own mind. There was no other logical explanation. Despite the rationalization, he trekked further into the estate with a tremble.

 _Come on, show yourself, beast…_ he willed as he entered a den with a dying fireplace, a few embers still holding out.

He placed his candle on a table and prodded at the freshly burnt logs with the fireplace poker. "So someone does live here…"

The floorboards behind him creaked from massive strain. He held the pistol close to his heart. The creature stalked slowly. Takaaki waited for just the right moment. It took precious time to reload a pistol, so he had to make the shot count.

An inhuman voice growled, "What're--?"

He was not prepared for a voice, for a creature with intelligent thought, so Takaaki panicked. He turned and fired his gun in the same motion, resulting in him only grazing the encroacher's arm and blasting a random vase instead.

 _"FUCK!"_ the beast yelped, grabbing its arm with a hiss through its sharp teeth before turning to the broken vase. It seethed, its tail twitching, as if it valued the finery over its own well-being. It whipped back around to him, eyes wild with rage, and roared, "BASTARD, DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU COULD'VE DONE?! THAT COULDA BEEN ANYBODY FOR ALL YOU KNEW!"

"I… I…" He shook as he held the pistol, its barrel smoking. He fumbled for his extra ball and store of gunpowder. This thing-- wolf, woman of the woods, whatever this strange form it took now was-- clearly wasn't playing anymore.

"I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT!" The beast snatched him by the collar and dragged him away and into the dungeons.

A wolf with a spotted muzzle sat upon a ledge overlooking the castle beside a black and white bear. Only it wasn't a wolf anymore, in a plume of black smoke it shifted into the form of a young woman. Mukuro Ikusaba.

"Sister, if I may ask… why did I have to lead Ishimaru here?"

"Simple," replied the bear, beaming deviously, "we're introducing some wild cards to spice up the game. The victory would be hollow otherwise."


	4. Our Happiness is Captured

The following day, Kiyotaka went ahead with his routine, ignorant of his father's grave situation. That was, until he came back home to an empty house once again.

"This can't be right!" he said to himself, searching for any sign of life, "He said he would be home by now!"

Fearing the worst, he gathered all the medical supplies they had and set out for the countryside. At twilight, he reached the farm that hired his father. The owner was quick to complain about his slaughtered sheep, and added with indifference that he hadn't seen Takaaki since last night. Knowing his father had his same unflinching sense of duty, he deduced that he had to have tailed whatever creature he was hired to kill, because he would never run away. This meant Taka himself had to journey into the treacherous forest as darkness fell across the land. He gulped, but his face stayed stern. He would walk through a thousand cursed woodlands if it meant he could keep his father safe. He was the only person he had in the world, all others scorned him because of his family name and lack of social grace.

The place was eerily peaceful, despite all the legends. There was not a sound, no woodland critter scuttling about. It was as if all its residents stopped and held their breath on his arrival, not appreciating the interruption. The only noise that was caught within the branches were Kiyotaka's calls for his father.

Then, he found the castle, a flame of candlelight dancing in one of the windows. His instincts just knew his father was inside.

He used the doorknocker a few times before, frustrated by a lack of answer, he pushed the door open himself. He looked around the foyer-- not a soul besides himself. Though... he could swear he heard someone whisper in disgust, "Oh god, there's two of them?" but he probably just imagined it…

"Father? Father...?" He called as he continued down the hall, "Are you here?"

He didn't hear his father's response, but there were other strange noises. Namely, a small clinking somewhere behind him. He turned and found he was still alone, but upon the floor sat a tiny maneki-neko statue with a thick green collar, its outstretched paw bobbing slightly through some internal mechanism.

He tutted, "Tsk, tsk. Now who would leave this in the middle of a hallway where anyone can step on it?" He picked it up and absently commented at its pleased face, "Cute…"

As he walked with it, he found a lamp rest within a wall. It wasn't the proper place for a welcoming trinket, being so deep in the estate, but it was certainly safer than the floor.

After setting it down and being momentarily entranced by how the motion made its paw wave at a frantic pace, Kiyotaka shook himself. "Gah, what am I doing?! I have to find my father! I can't let myself get distracted!" He glanced down the hall that seemed to stretch beyond his vision. "But this estate is so big. How will I ever find him?"

The tick of the moving arm stopped abruptly. Kiyotaka looked over and found it got stuck on the downswing. How unfortunate! Ironically so, for a good luck charm! But the way it landed struck a fancy in him. He peered in the direction the paw pointed and, sure enough, it led directly to an entryway to a long, winding flight of stairs. He glanced back at the thing, wondering if he even set it down to face that way, before deciding it didn't matter and following the hunch the ceramic cat gave him.

He flew up the stairs and found himself in a chamber with a few holding cells. A familiar cough reverberated from one of them.

"Father!"

"Taka?" He crawled to the door, wrapping his hands around the bars. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you!" He noticed that the dark circles that always sat below his father's eyes were darker than normal-- or perhaps his face was even more pale, so they looked darker by comparison. Either possibility didn't bode well, especially with that cough. "You look terrible! We have to get you out of here!"

"There's no time! You have to leave, right now, before it finds you!"

"What finds me?"

As if on cue, a damnable sound like a roll of thunder rumbled up the stairs, its source so fast that the candles blew out from the air it kicked up.

"WHO ARE YOU?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" roared the huge silhouetted monstrosity.

"What have you done to my father?!"

"I'm just giving 'm what was coming to him!"

"Why?! He's never done anything to anyone!"

A disbelieving pause.

"HE BROKE INTO MY GODDAMN HOUSE AND FUCKING SHOT ME!"

"Well... I'm sure he had a good reason!" Kiyotaka was quick to defend. "You must have scared him! Now let him go!"

"Scared him?! Listen, asshole! He could've killed me or any of my staff! A life sentence is letting him off easy!"

"A life…" The idea hung heavy on his heart. "But you can't do that! He's sick, can't you see? He could die in a cold, wet dungeon like this!"

"W-well, he shoulda thought of that before he went all trigger happy in my palace!"

It hesitated with that remark. That meant that, despite its claims of what his father deserved, it didn't want blood on its hands.

"Wait! I'll make a deal with you! I'll serve his sentence in his place!"

"Taka, what are you doing?!"

It was quiet for a moment. "You would… do that? You would… sacrifice yourself, just like that?" The being's lavender eyes were wide with… something. It wasn't surprise, it almost looked like… recognition.

"Of course I would. I promise you, I would never stray, so long as you let him go."

Takaaki reached through the bars, gripping his son's sleeve. "Son, I won't let you do this. You have a whole life left to live, you can't just throw it away!"

The beast grunted, as if watching the scene playing out before it was physically painful. "Gah, I can't stand this shit anymore! Stop _looking_ at me like that!" It was angry, but also somewhat… panicked. Which was odd, considering it held basically all the power in the situation.

"I won't! Not until you make a decision!"

"Fine!"

It ripped open the cell door and dragged Takaaki out, hauling him down the stairs and through the castle, all the way to the stables in the courtyard. Most of them were empty, excluding one. The horse knickered fretfully as the beast opened the stable door.

"Easy, easy Kawasaki," it said, taking its reins and gently leading it out, "It's still me." It gave the steed a stroke along its long nose.

Takaaki only had a moment to reflect on the bizarre personality shift before he was slung over the horse's saddle like a sack of potatoes.

"Get 'm as close to the village as ya can. If ya see that bear… just run."

The beast clicked its tongue a certain way, and Kawasaki broke into a gallop through the gates and disappeared within the trees.

When the beast left the room with his father, Kiyotaka had begged for one last goodbye. Now by himself in the world, no parting words exchanged, the reality of the situation crashed over him like a wave. He couldn't earn his way into a university now, nor into the hearts and minds of the people. He would never be able to redeem the Ishimaru name. And now, he didn't even have someone to share the burden with.

Kiyotaka gripped his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. That... thing… soon returned to the tower.

It rubbed its furry nape, ears folded back. "Uh… hey… listen…"

He blinked away his tears. He didn't want to give the cruel creature the sadistic satisfaction of seeing him cry. " _Don't_ talk to me."

"Hey, buddy, remember that _I'm_ the one in charge!" Its tail flicked in annoyance and it swiveled on its heel, its cape fluttering behind it. "Now get up and follow me. I'm taking you to your room."

"My room? But aren't I--"

It raised an eyebrow. "What? You really wanna stay in this shithole?"

"No."

"Then follow me."

As they walked through the halls, Kiyotaka finally got a good look at his captor in the candlelight. It was giant, at least 8 feet tall. It greatly resembled a tiger in body and coat pattern. The paws, the whiskers, the tail-- all signatures of the jungle cat. But it differed from the diagrams Taka saw in his textbooks in very obvious places. Firstly, it walked on two legs like a man. Second, its ears were not small and rounded as a tiger's but pointed like some sort of canine's. It also had prominent, slightly shaggy dark hackles. But most unusual of all was its head, for sprouting from the top of it and curling out in front was a singular and rather large goat's horn.

"You enjoyin' the freak show?" it snipped, well aware of his staring.

"I wouldn't say so," Kiyotaka admitted.

It puffed, "Well, at least you don't bullshit." After a spell of silence, it went on to explain, "Look, this place is your home now, I guess, so feel free to go wherever you want-- except the West Wing. That's where my room is. A guy needs his private time, y'know? And help yourself to whatever you want from the kitchen, I couldn't give a shit."

"You're quite liberal with your prisoners…"

"Look, this is uncharted territory for me! With your dad it was easy to just lock 'm up cuz, ya know, he fuckin' shot me. But you're just some guy, you haven't pissed me off _that_ much yet. Keep that up and the arrangement stays pleasant."

They came to a huge set of white wooden doors, and the beast opened it for him. After he was inside, it-- he, Kiyotaka corrected himself-- spoke from out of his sight.

"The name's Mondo, by the way."

He didn't turn around. "Kiyotaka."

With that, the beast-- Mondo-- left for his own quarters. Taka stood in the dark for a while in complete silence, before he collapsed on the bed and quietly wept himself into a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has definitely been done before, but I wanted to give it an ol' college try; I saw a prompt for it on tumblr and got super inspired.
> 
> *Edit: An exchange in this chapter now has an absolutely gorgeous piece of fanart! Check it out!
> 
> https://somnus-sd.tumblr.com/post/640018126443085824/so-i-wanted-to-do-a-beauty-and-the-beast-au-for


	5. It's a Guest!

He woke up far later than usual the next day. In any other situation he would be upset by that, but tardiness was the least of his worries at the present. He was trapped in a castle without a shred of company, laying in the shed blood of his slain dreams.

Still, Kiyotaka was Kiyotaka, so he forced himself out of bed to tackle the day.

He took the time now to observe his room. Bathed in sunlight it was much less oppressive. The walls were papered in gentle blue, and beyond the canopy bed stood a large white vanity with drawers, and beside that, a wardrobe. Sitting upon the vanity was a set of assorted knick-knacks: that maneki-neko from before, a worn reddish-brown leather ball of some kind, and, most intriguing to him, a music box. It was a little rounded wooden box, painted soft pink and with a white floral pattern snaking up from its short legs. Standing atop it in arabesque was a porcelain ballerina in a ruffled pink and white dress, long blue hair framing her pretty face. On a whim, he twisted the key on the front, and the figure slowly turned around and around to a tinkling melody. It was a beautiful song, seemingly cheerful, but lilting in lows that suggested a hidden yearning. Though a mundane object, he was spellbound by the sheer fact it existed in a place like this. The overt femininity and delicacy of the doll flew in the face of the brutish nature of the master of the castle. Why did he own something like this?

"I'm not a doll, you know. I'm very much alive!"

His brow wrinkled. Did… did he just hear that? It was a girl's voice, and it sounded like it was coming from…

"I know what you're thinking, and yes, I'm talking to you!"

It was the ballerina. He saw her mouth open with his own two eyes. He blanched, jaw slacking wide as he recoiled in shock. "But you're a… you're a…!"

She intuited what he was about to say, "I told you, I'm not a doll. I'm under a spell. Listen--"

He gripped his head. "Th-this is impossible!"

A new voice struck out, "Finally, somebody blew the lid off! I swear, I was gonna friggin' toss myself off the balcony again if I had to stay still one more minute!" The shabby ball rolled into view and its unstapled seam split open in the shape of a smile. "Yo! The name's Leon Kuwata. What's up?"

Taka screamed and, on fighting instinct, snatched the ball and lobbed it into the wall as hard as he could.

A beat as he stared at the unmoving ball, fretting the worst. Then, it sprang back to life, shaking itself like a dog. "Whoa, you've got a great pitching arm!"

He bowed in apology. "I-I'm so sorry, Mr. Kuwata! You startled me!"

It rolled back towards him in a woozy way. "Nah, nah, it's cool! I don't feel pain. A good throw's the only way to get some decent entertainment around here, anyway…"

Well, that explained why it-- he-- looked so beaten up.

"Don't mind him," said the ballerina, "His brain's made of cork. Now, about the spell--"

"Hey, uh, are we doing introductions now?" the good luck charm chimed in. "My name's Makoto, Makoto Naegi."

"Makoto!" Kiyotaka echoed far too loudly, "What a strong name! A powerful name!" He was trying very hard to act like this was all normal, thinking perhaps if he did he could trick his brain into believing it was.

"And this is Sayaka," Makoto turned himself so his beckoning paw pointed to her.

"It's nice to meet you, miss!"

"Likewise!" she replied, "And sorry for spooking you. We've been waiting for someone like you to show up for a long time, so we're all a bit eager..."

He cocked his head. "Huh?"

"She just means we don't get a lot of visitors! It gets lonely here, ha ha..."

He didn't notice the nervous undercurrent to Makoto's chuckle. "Yes, that makes sense. You are a bit out of the way." He turned back to the floor, asking if Leon needed help getting back on the vanity. While he was distracted, Sayaka whispered to Makoto.

"Why won't you let me tell him about the curse?"

"Sayaka… I know you wanna get out of here as soon as possible, believe me, I do too. But if he feels pressured to fall in love with him, it won't happen!"

Kiyotaka reemerged holding Leon and set him down with the rest. "Say," he looked to Makoto, "does this mean you pointed me to where my father was on purpose?"

"Uh, yeah…"

"Thank you."

"Mm, dunno if I'd say that if I was in your shoes," Leon admitted. "I mean, you finding your dad is the reason you're trapped here!"

"Leon!" Sayaka said in a harsh, hushed tone.

"Yes, well… It was my decision to offer myself. I won't deny that. This is a promise I made, so I'm going to honor it in full. It's the right thing to do, even if it's painful." A beat, then he asked, "Can either of you show me to the kitchen? I haven't eaten since noon yesterday…"

Makoto blinked. "Uh-- yeah, yeah. Sure. Could you put a pillow down so I don't chip myself?"

"My pleasure!"

As he went to retrieve it, Makoto again conspired with Sayaka.

"Okay, I had reservations, but they're kinda more compatible than they look."

"I told you, I'm psychic!" she said in good humor.

"There's a lot of work that needs to be done, but there's hope. Hope is always a good start."

He placed a pillow on the floor and Makoto hopped down, followed shortly by the others. The good luck charm took the lead, Taka following close and the two remaining objects slacking behind out of earshot.

"Ah, human again…" Leon sighed blissfully, "Think what that means!"

"Don't roll into a musical number," she giggled, "it doesn't fit the medium. And your vocals are always pitchy."

He had no idea what that "medium" comment meant, so he disregarded it. "Phst! Don't worry about it! I'm just saying, I'm pumped! I'll be my good-looking self again, and chicks'll be kickin' down the doors! Ha-ha!" A pause, and he turned a bit more serious. "I tell ya, Sayaka, I'm sick of it. No arms, no legs, no beautiful auburn hair or cerulean eyes-- drives me nuts! When I turn back, I won't even _look_ at a baseball ever again!"

"You say that, but I think you're so antsy because you're so used to running around a field all day that you don't know what to do with yourself cooped up in here…"

The seam on the ball closed again, leather bunching as if a pouting set of lips.

"But I agree, it will be nice," said the music box, "Once the spell is broken, people outside the castle will remember we exist. There's those outside I would love to see again."

"Who'd that be? Minstrels don't really have a lot of ties…"

"We don't. But in the practice of wandering, minstrels often travel together for convenience, and you grow close despite yourself. Then, when you split, you hope that you cross paths again on your journeys from court to court. And I've walked many paths with many people, bonds growing thicker than blood..."

"Mm, yeah, I got you..."

She hummed pleasantly and concluded, "Human again… oh, Leon, won't it all be top-drawer?"

"You're both getting a bit ahead of yourselves," a voice cut through their conversation coldly.

"Jeez, Kirigiri! Warn a guy next time!" said Leon, who had bounced a little when she first spoke. "Scared the crap outta me…"

To be fair, it wasn't as if the magnifying glass's approach wasn't telegraphed. Due to her unfortunate anatomy, her only method of locomotion was hopping upon the bottom of her handle over and over, creating a constant tapping as she moved. The other two were too engrossed in their exchange to notice her.

"What are you saying, Kyoko? Junko has free reign over the woods and the palace, she controls who can come and go. That means this Kiyotaka person has to be important," Sayaka explained her reasoning, "And who'd be more important than the person that this game of hers hinges on?"

"Is it about the falling in love thing?" asked Leon. "Dunno why everybody's worried about that. Falling in love is easy! I do it all the time!"

Her silvery lavender frame turned to the side, dipping slightly to the floor. "It's not that, it's just…" She cast the critical gaze of her glass directly onto Taka. "...it seems… too easy."

The group made it to the kitchen and Taka, when he made a sweep around the room, was also surprised by Kyoko's presence.

"Oh, hello."

"Hello."

"Kiyotaka Ishimaru."

"Kyoko Kirigiri."

"I didn't see you in my room with the rest of the welcoming committee. Were you late? That's a very unbecoming habit…"

"If anything, I was earlier than the rest. I went through and confiscated the contents of that rucksack you brought. The master is injured, so he needs the balms and wrappings more than you at the moment."

At mention of the beast, his expression soured. "Well, I hope he finds good use for them," he said severely. He immediately changed the subject. "Makoto, do you know where the tea bags are around here?"

He pointed them out, along with the teapot, cups, and the rest of the tea set. Taka set them out on the counter and just… stared at them for a bit, his arms crossed, like he was waiting for something.

"Uh, you good, dude?"

"Yes."

A pause, then the baseball spoke again.

"You _do_ know not all the stuff in the castle is alive, right?"

Another long pause.

Taka silently filled the teapot and set it to boil on the stove. Meanwhile, peering into the entryway to the kitchen, another whatnot observed him. It was a joker card depicting a rather plain-looking little girl, cast out from its deck. One may wonder, where exactly were its 52 brothers and sisters? Well, firstly, one would be mistaken to refer to them in such a manner as they were more along the lines of a collective consciousness, and secondly, the majority of the deck was shuffling its way to through the West Wing to Mondo's bedroom. It finally reached the chamber and stood before the slumbering animal, the Queen of Spades its topmost card.

"Your Highness?" she said with her lilting French accent, "Oh prince?"

She prodded at his paw, only for him to tuck it close to his body, grumbling.

Without even a change of expression, the Bedpost Queen inserted herself further back in the deck, which then bent at the small edges, causing the cards that were once behind her to shoot out directly into Mondo's face.

"Hey, hey! What the hell! I'm up, I'm up!" he groaned. The onslaught ceased and he rubbed his face. "What's going on?"

The Black Lady returned to the top. "Your guest is out and about. He is making tea. You should go say hello to him, you know, be a proper host."

"Ugh. That froufrou crap ain't exactly my style, Celeste..."

"Oh, and what is? Holding family members captive and making terrible first impressions? You do realize that he is likely the one who can break the spell, do you not?"

"Of course I do! I'm not a dumbass!"

"Then you have to win him over! And that means being less like…" The illustration on the card swept her scepter up and down. "... this."

"Alright, alright, I get it, I suck," he groused, finally rising to his four legs, "I don't need you to tell me that..."

"Now, up on your back paws!" The loose cards poked him and he reared up. "Hold you head high!" A three of diamonds whipped him in the chin. "Tail straight!" A whole poker hand wrapped around his tail and tugged it hard, causing him to roar in pain. "Smile." Two cards pinned his curled lips upwards. "And most importantly--"

"WILL YOU CUT THAT SHIT OUT?!" he shouted, blowing the cards crowding him away.

Celeste looked up at him coolly, her mouth covered with her scepter. "Keep. Your. Temper."

His ears flattened in shame. "I know, I know…"

"Let's be off." She tucked herself into the pocket of the jacket tied around his neck like a cape.

He walked stiffly through the corridor outside his room, trying to maintain the posture Celeste forced upon him. Quiet laughter echoed through the empty suits of armor lining the walls.

"Guys… c'mon!" he whined, "I'm tryna be fancy to fix you!"

The smallest one chuckled, the puffy pale yellow plume that sprouted from his helmet shaking. "Yeah, yeah, we know, but damn if it ain't funny!"

He grunted and continued to the kitchen. It seemed nearly every transmogrified staff member (excluding his armor royal guard and those who didn't have the luxury of free moment) crowded just outside as the prisoner cooked himself a meal to go with the tea.

"Well, look what finally decided to show its ugly face," snipped Byakuya the lockbox. He had no face of his own, but the way his lid sat combined with his tone somehow perfectly conveyed his chilling contempt. It was honestly impressive.

"Shut yer trap…" Mondo growled in a low voice. His claws incidentally extended from his fingertips.

"Mondo, easy…" Makoto warned.

He realized his claws were out and retracted them with self-reproach. That box really did deserve a good walloping, and given his metal frame he could probably take it, but…

His mind went blank for a moment, shifted briefly from thoughts coherent to an image. A single image of thick splinters of wood against a hard stone floor…

He... had to take care of them, like he promised Daiya…

Oh sweet Jesus, was he in a shitty headspace now. It would be better if he didn't…

"C'mon man! Go in there and sweep him off his feet already!" cried Leon, who thumped against his heel.

He swallowed down his anxiety and walked in. Taka looked up from a pan he had on the stove top.

"Uh, hey."

"Hello."

The tension was palpable.

"So… whatcha cookin'...?"

"I'm steaming rice."

"Oh, then what?"

"I will eat it."

"Jesus, ya ain't even gonna season it? The hell's wrong with you?"

The animate objects cringed.

Kiyotaka snapped, "Well _I'm sorry_ if my rice cooking skills don't meet your standards! Not all of us live in giant enchanted castles with talking bric-a-brac, some of us have to make do with what we have! Besides, I don't even know where your spices are!"

Mondo wordlessly opened a cabinet, revealing a spice rack and bottles of dressings and oils. Taka huffed through his nose and gathered some seasonings.

"Do you want me to cook up some more for you?"

"Uh, yeah, sure, I guess. I mean, you don't hafta. I know you're a prisoner an' all, but I'm not gonna make you work or nothin'."

Kiyotaka ignored his rambling, instead going back to the big bag of rice resting on the pantry floor. "How much do you need?"

"Dunno. Whatever you think is best. I can put a whole damn bag away by myself on a good day."

He raised those bushy brows. "How have you not eaten yourself out of house and home yet?!"

"It restocks overnight-- part of the spell the whole place is under." _That bastard bear wants me to live as long as possible…_

"That seems convenient."

"It ain't worth it."

Taka dumped in more rice and added some oil and spices to liven up the dish, then finally set the tea to boil so they would be done around the same time. Mondo meanwhile sat himself at the table, leaning back on his chair with arms behind his head and legs crossed over the tabletop.

"Mondo, paws off the table," said Celeste sharply.

"You ain't my mom."

"Yes, but I _am_ your etiquette teacher. Or at least I was."

He said sardonically, "Well, didn't you do a bang-up job? I tell ya, I don't remember rounds of blackjack bein' part a' most folks' decorum, but then again it was never my field of expertise..."

She didn't dignify that with a response.

Kiyotaka emerged with food and drink, setting down Mondo's portion without even looking him in the eye. He made it quite clear that all the formalities were just that. As they ate in tense silence, the objects observed the scene.

Said Makoto, "Well, this isn't going as well as we hoped."

"Didn't I tell you peons that?" griped Byakuya.

"Crap, what do we do now?! Mood lighting? Music?" panicked Leon, "I had this whole dinner show thing planned in my head for like a year, maybe--!"

"That won't do any good," Kyoko cut him off.

A fat inkwell with a long pen sticking out of its top, who had been there for a while but hadn't said anything yet, injected its own commentary. "This may not be my exact genre, but I have a solution! We wreck every bed in the castle excluding Mr. Ishimaru's! That way, he and Prince Owada will be forced to share quarters-- and maybe more!"

"No way! That's stupid!" cried the baseball.

The argument was cut short by the sound of clanking metal approaching quickly from behind.

"Outta the way! Comin' through!" proclaimed the petite armor, carrying the crystal ball close to his breastplate like a football.

The metal man burst into the dining room and Mondo turned to him with concern. "Takemichi, what's--?"

Takemichi presented the crystal ball. "Hiro was screamin' his head off for ya."

"That seems a poor choice of words. The man is only head now," said Celeste.

Yasuhiro's face flashed onto the ball in an instant. "Mondo, dude! Upstairs, West Wing, now! It's about _the thing!"_

Kiyotaka had no clue what _the thing_ was, or why it was such a cause for alarm, but clearly his jailer did. Upon its mention, Mondo's eyes widened and he sprang to his feet.

"Shit!" He broke into a sprint through the corridors, not even bothering to stay on two legs, the staff jumping out of his way. "Shitshitshitshitshitshit!" Takemichi with Hiro scrambled not far behind.

And so, Kiyotaka was left there in the dining room, miffed of course by the rude departure and even ruder company, but nevertheless intrigued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God I love writing Leon also. He is just a stupid horny teen. Also baseball existed in the 18th century, who knew, right?
> 
> Also also low-key wondering if I should just tag this as ensemble because some characters have bigger parts than others....


	6. Then Somebody Bends

Mondo burst into his bedroom, claws latching into the floor so he didn't skid. He landed right before the little table in the center of the room. What he saw snapped him in half.

It was a singular petal resting on the cloth, snow white.

If this were any other bundle of sakura branches in any old vase, this would be a good sign. Considering the cold weather, it would be a miracle for any flower to not be completely dead, especially ones as fleeting as cherry blossoms. But this was no ordinary flower.

You see, Junko's enchantment was not cast equal across all palace residents. There was the obvious case of the prince, but there was also Yasuhiro, who beyond his blurry future sight was granted a far more accurate sight of the present to mock the group with images of the world moving along without them. And then there was the case of Sakura Ogami.

"It's a sad sight to see," said Hiro solemnly, "Her just giving in like that. Never thought I'd see the day..."

"Don't say that shit. You remember when my birthday was? June. _Early_ June. The bear said she'd only bloom 'til then, but look at her, she held out for months. It's 'cause of her we have the chance we do now-- don't sell her short."

Sakura was a strong woman. Physically, yes, but also in character. It was something Mondo deeply admired about her. She was calm and collected and kind, but could kick absolutely _any_ ass on the planet if need be. Hell, it wouldn't surprise him if, had she been affected as most of the staff had, she would still give that wicked fairy a deserved bashing even as a feather duster or something.

But she couldn't do that now, for she was the bear's tool. A ticking clock that counted down to doomsday. A motive. She couldn't speak, she couldn't move, she couldn't help in any way aside from enduring. It was a sickening fate in Mondo's eyes, perhaps even worse than his own.

"Should we water her, or are we folding?" said Celeste, who had climbed her way to Mondo's shoulder.

"Of course we're watering her, she's not dead yet. We have to run out the clock."

He took hold of the vessel beside Sakura, a glazed piece of curvy white and red pottery which was formerly her bosom buddy Aoi Asahina. The spell had rendered them a permanent joint package, and thus she had no voice either. What a horrid fate, to be cursed to practically always be together, but unable to exchange a single word or gesture. It plunged the knife of guilt that always rested in his heart deeper every time he looked at them.

The objects that had gathered outside the dining room to witness the sparks fly trickled out in disappointment. That is, except for Makoto, Sayaka, and Leon, who were still holding out hope. Kiyotaka finished his brunch alone without fuss and cleaned his place at the table. Still, he would glance in the direction Mondo left intermittently. Clearly, he had captured some interest, even if it was just curious annoyance.

"The master might not seem like it at first, but he really is sweet once you get to know him," Makoto explained. "Trust me, I was in your shoes years ago. He's just… a hard nut to crack."

Leon injected, "Yeah, like, the dude loves animals. Like little purse dogs and horses. He eats 'em up."

Taka's jaw dropped and he recoiled. It took a minute for Leon to figure out why.

"No, no! Wait! I don't mean literally!" He tried to save face. "He might look like a monster, but he's not! He's as human as you or me!"

At this remark, Taka raised an eyebrow in confusion. "But you're… not."

"Ugh, don't remind me…"

He dropped that topic and addressed all three of them. "Is there a reason why he ran off? It seemed urgent."

"Oh, it's nothing you have to worry about! It's just household affairs. You're a guest, so it's no cause for alarm," Makoto dodged the question, then offered a distraction, "Now, is there any place else you'd like to go? There's the courtyard gardens, the ballroom, the library…"

"You have a library?" Kiyotaka practically leapt out of his chair.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, taken aback by his excitement, "Yes, we do! A big one! I'll take you right now, if you'd like."

"That would be splendid! Thank you, Makoto!"

He followed the maneki-neko out of the room, the music box and baseball watching not far behind.

"At this rate, he'll fall for Makoto instead of Mondo…"

"Well, you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody in this palace who _doesn't_ have a crush on Makoto, at least a little…"

They were both half-joking, but their tones were still grave.

"We don't have time for slow-burn romance. Hiro had to have come down like that because the petals started falling. We need him to understand the gravity of the situation."

"And how the hell do we do that?"

"I have an idea…"

They caught up with Makoto and Taka, Sayaka getting cozy with the little ceramic cat, using her charms and sweet music as a distraction. When the time came, Leon, who had placed himself between Taka and the other two, split off into his own direction. Taka froze, glancing between the two chatting curios and the lone ball rolling away.

"Leon, where are you going?" he stage-whispered.

"This is a shortcut, trust me!"

He deliberated a moment, then decided Sayaka and Makoto were getting on well enough on their own and that he shouldn't intrude on them. He followed Leon.

The corridor Kiyotaka found himself walking down was drenched with ruin. It was grimy and dusty, with deep dark scratches in the walls. Shoved against one door was a pile of (hopefully not alive) partly smashed furniture.

"What happened here?"

"Erm, not a thing!" Leon said unconvincingly. There was _definitely_ something in there, but it was clearly not for his eyes and ears, so Taka ignored it. He kept moving, but a creeping suspicion made him take pause.

"Leon… is this the West Wing?"

He turned as he kept rolling, some baseball equivalent of ambling backwards. "What? No, of course not! You're not supposed to go there, so why would I take you? Where would you get such a stupid idea?"

He pointed some distance ahead of them. "Is that not the suit of armor who followed Mondo there?"

The ball froze mid-roll. "Uh…"

"Hey, what the hell are you guys doin' here?" asked Takemichi gruffly.

"My apologies! I believe Leon was just a bit turned around looking for the library!"

"Yeah! Totally!"

Takemichi looked between them and sighed. He picked up Leon and tossed the protesting ball with prejudice back the way the two came to sights unseen. He regarded Kiyotaka with I-can't-believe-you-listened-to-that-chucklefuck disappointment. "You oughta get outta here before Princey gets back."

Kiyotaka saluted. "Right away, sir!" Then his pose faltered. "Wait, does that mean he isn't here? I thought he had urgent matters to attend to here."

"He does. That's why he ain't in here, he's outside by the water pump. Takin' his sweet-ass time, though…"

He was confounded by the contradiction. If the urgent matters were here, what was he doing out there? And he was taking long? Oh my, maybe...

He shook his head, as if to launch the curiosity out of his brain. It wasn't any of his business what that beast was up to. His gaze downcast. "Well, I'll be off to that library, then…"

He turned on his heel, but Takemichi spoke and he took pause.

"Oh, go an' help 'm, I know ya want to! You ain't foolin' me, actin' coy! My head wasn't always hollow, ya know!" This was followed by the banging of metal against metal, presumably his knuckles meeting his helmet.

"Uh… I… I'll see what I can do," replied Taka noncommittally. With that, he left the West Wing. He marched with a robotic gait, gliding along the marble floors. He didn't really think about where his feet were taking him, he just let them do their work.

Why was he so conflicted about helping? It wasn't like him-- he was always eager to lend a hand. But that beast was… well, beastly! He was ruthless and quick to anger, not to mention rude! He shouldn't even want to be in the same room as him! And yet…

He stepped out the back kitchen door and into the open. A few small, fluffy white flakes drifted in the air. The beginnings of the first snow of the season, which was typically the worst of the year. And there was Mondo at the water pump, struggling against the lever and to keep upright a jug poised below its spout at the same time.

"Whaddya want?"

"Do you… require assistance?"

"Require assist… the hell? Why are ya so damn formal all the time?"

He reiterated, voice forceful and loud, "Do you require it or not?"

"Jesus Christ, ya got anythin' between yer ears?! Ya ain't in th--" He seemed about to metaphorically (or perhaps literally, given he was part tiger) pounce on him, but his tail accidentally swatted the vessel, sending it into a wobble. He threw himself to the ground, pinning it between his giant paws. He breathed a sigh of relief at the close call. Then, his gaze fell sharply on Kiyotaka.

"Ya see that, how badly that coulda gone?! That's why ya shouldn't be some holier-than-thou busybody!"

"Really? Because to me the problem seems to be you and that horrible temper!"

Mondo growled with a furrowed brow and extending claws. However, the moment their tips tapped the glazed surface of the vase, his eyes expanded and shone that glimmer of puzzling vulnerability Taka had already witnessed once or twice. The claws tucked away.

"Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey! Ya know what? Fine. I'll take it. The help you offered, I mean."

"Right," Kiyotaka nodded, glad he was finally getting somewhere, "Now, the first thing we should do is find a different cont--"

"Ugh, not that crap!" Mondo whined, standing up. "Look, just… keep Hina steady, alright? I'm gonna handle the pump shit."

"Understood."

Taka held the curvy vase in place as Mondo pushed down on the lever.

"It's the cold, ya know. Freezes up the joints a bit, so ya gotta use some elbow grease to get it loose." His ear flicked away a fat clump of snowflakes. It was already coming down thicker.

On Taka's side of things, he could see why this would take so long. The vase-- Hina-- didn't have a flat enough bottom to sit by herself. Having to unstick the lever and hold her up was likely taxing. He wondered why Mondo would even do it by himself in the first place, but his brain quickly supplied an answer of pride. That satisfied him, and he continued staring at the vase as it filled with a stream of water.

"So… Hina. You're one of the palace staff, I assume. You're very quiet! Are you shy?"

Mondo spoke instead, "Pfft, Hina? No way! She's one a' the bubbliest ones here! She prolly woulda been the first there to greet ya, ya know, if she…"

His cheerful, reminiscing voice died. The water flow cut off. But that didn't matter much, because she was full anyway.

"Damnit, now I'm gettin' all depressed…"

Taka stood up, holding the vessel by her teardrop-shaped handle, supporting her bottom. Wait, were these analogous to human parts? If so… "Gah! I'm sorry I have to do this, miss! I swear to you, I mean nothing by it!"

Mondo, despite himself, let out a little amused puff as he walked around the pump, before settling back into his serious expression. "C'mon, let's bring 'r up."

They walked through the castle, Kiyotaka stiffly. His ruby eyes traced along Hina's rim.

"So, her silence is the result of a spell?"

" _Everything_ weird 'round here is 'cause of a spell!"

He thought that over and voiced a speculation that had been forming in his mind.

"These objects… they were all once people, is that right?"

"No shit."

He was surprised at his frankness.

"Does that mean… that you were as well?"

That matter was much more private, it seemed. He groaned bitterly, gaze falling to his feet. He didn't say a word on the subject.

They approached the West Wing, and Taka stopped himself right at the threshold. It took Mondo a few minutes to realize his guest wasn't behind him.

"The hell are you doing?" He said as he shuffled back.

"I'm following the rules, obviously."

He buried his face in his paws. "Ya dumbass, if I'm walkin' you there, 'a course I-- ugh! C'mon!"

Mondo took him to his room. Kiyotaka poured over every detail, the wrecked furnishings and shredded linens and wallpaper. Muddy, sometimes bloody paw prints stained the floor. Several window panes on the doors to the balcony were smashed, which made the cold all the worse as the snow continued falling outside. And in the middle of it was the table that living crystal ball sat upon.

"Wow, bringing him to the bedroom already? Nice work, man!"

"Shut up…"

The pair approached the table and Mondo held open his paw, beckoning.

"Gimme her."

Taka handed Hina over, and Mondo began pouring into a vase of sakura branches. Taka, meanwhile, exchanged words with the crystal ball.

"I believe we haven't properly been introduced! My name is Kiyotaka Ishimaru!"

"I'm Yasuhiro Hagakure-- Hiro for short! And you go by Taka sometimes, right?"

He gasped, "How did you know? The only person who calls me that is my father!"

"See, I'm clairvoyant! The universe blesses me with all sorts of knowledge!" The face on the ball literally glowed with pride.

Mondo interjected, "He means he was peepin' on you and your dad when ya first came. He can see all the shit that goes on 'round here."

"Oh…"

"I'm not noisy about it, dude, so take it easy," he assured Taka.

"Oh, that's good news!"

With the conversation drifting away and Mondo continuing to tend to the blossoms, his eyes swept around the room again. They snagged upon a portion of an ornate frame, mostly obscured by a tattered chaise lounge. Seeing a nail and a lighter spot on the wall, he decided to make himself useful. He drew towards the frame and turned it upright, slowly pulling it out. It was a portrait of a young man with stylish black hair and… someone else, whose face was slashed, the canvas in thin, impossible to decipher strips. Still, he lifted a dangling bit of canvas to see if he might complete the picture…

Something furry snagged his wrist and tossed it away from the painting. The tension bubbling between them had finally spilled over.

"DON'T TOUCH MY SHIT, ASSHOLE!" Mondo roared directly into his face, "THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

"I'm _trying_ to bring some order to this place!"

"WELL THAT AIN'T YER JOB, IT'S _MY_ FUCKIN' CASTLE!"

"Well a fat lot of good you're doing it! You're letting your home waste away! And for what? To mope in here about some curse and lash out at people, like some lazy coward?"

"YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP! I AIN'T A COWARD! YOU DON'T KNOW HALF THE SHIT I'VE BEEN THROUGH!"

Now, Kiyotaka's shouts met the beast's in volume. "YOU ARE! YOU'VE GIVEN UP IN EVEN YOUR DAILY STRUGGLES! THAT'S THE DEFINITION OF A COWARD!"

"YOU TALK A LOTTA SHIT FOR SOMEONE WHO PROLLY CAN'T BACK IT UP! I'M GONNA KILL YA IF YA DON'T SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"

"I WILL NOT!" Taka put his foot down literally and metaphorically.

There was a pause, Mondo briefly surprised that his intimidation had no effect.

"FINE!" He flung the jacket tied around his neck off. "THEN LET'S SETTLE THIS LIKE MEN!"

"LET'S!"

The two stormed through the halls as if they shared the same consciousness, knowing exactly where they should go. They came across Makoto, who realized at some point that he lost Kiyotaka and had gone looking for him. They badgered him into being a witness for a contest between them. It wasn't a fight, no; both had come to realize that route was unfair, considering Mondo's biology was that of a killing machine (and, despite everything, he _still_ didn't really want blood on his hands). Besides, it was a matter of guts they were settling, so that wouldn't even make sense. No, it was an endurance contest, one that would prove through its loser who the true weakling was.

"H-hey, guys, why don't we just talk about--?"

"NO!" Both screamed simultaneously.

"How are you even going to do it?"

Kiyotaka looked to the front door and got a terrible idea. He walked over and shoved it open, revealing the whipping winds and flurries of the growing snowstorm. Mondo immediately understood. And before Makoto had a chance to refute them again, they were out the door and sitting in the piling snow.

And there they sat, sat, sat. The frigid wetness of the snow beneath them seeped through the seats of their pants. The assault from below was accompanied by the bombardment from the air, chilling them at all angles.

"Y-ya know, ya s-signed yer f-fuckin' death warrant, a-asshole," Mondo bragged through chattering teeth, "I f-fuckin' hate this b-b-body, but least I got o-one thing ya don't… f-f-fur!"

"Th-that w-w-won't matter once the sn-snow soaks through! In fact, you'll p-probably be w… worse off! Just like that fur, you're all fl-fluff and no s-s-substance!"

"You ain't g-g-gotta act all b-big, man. You're sh-shakin' like a leaf! I c-can hardly understand what yer f-fuckin' sayin'!"

He laughed-- a stark, proud sound, distinct as if he was dictating it in a letter. "An act, you say?! I am n-not acting! I'm p-p-plenty good to go! I could eat a g-giant bowl of ice cr-cr-cream r-right now!"

"You s-son of a b-bitch! Br-bring it on!"

They went quiet again, wind whistling in their ears. Both were dusted in a thin coating of white, though Taka's was difficult to see anywhere besides the flakes caught in his dark hair and brows. Mondo broke the silence.

He whispered, "You're f-fuckin' clueless if ya think this is e-enough to b-b-break me. I hurt day after day, th-this ain't sh-shit."

"...H-how?"

"Mm?"

"H-how are you… h-hurt?"

"Oh, it… it d-don't mean nothin', uh, physical. I'm just the one that's to b-blame for this spell bein' on e-everybody. And they let me kn-know how they feel 'bout it... every d-day. I f-feel like a st-stranger in my own _damn_ house. Ya wouldn't get th-that..."

He sighed, a cloud of mist billowing from his muzzle.

"Actually... I do..."

Kiyotaka laid his soul bare. He talked about his grandfather's status and scandal, their poverty and exile, how even the backwater village the Ishimarus resided in despised them, and how he never, ever had a friend once in his life.

"J-Jesus Christ, man. Th-that's--"

"That is why I'm g-going to win. I've lived through m-m-much worse th-than this! In f-fact, I'm actually getting… a bit t-toasty!"

Mondo squinted, eyes bleary. "That's… pr-prolly not good…"

It wasn't. Kiyotaka was unlacing his boots, complaining disjointedly about the heat. He pulled off his boots and socks, unbuttoned and tossed away his jacket, then his undershirt.

"Ya goddamn… idiot. Yer gonna... die..." Jesus, was it getting hard to hold on to any thought for any amount of time. The cold was starting to get to him, wasn't it? He weakly placed his paw on Taka's hand as it fumbled with the button on his pants.

Taka's eyes met his, hazy. "M-Mondo?"

Mondo felt himself nod, his eyelids slamming closed.

Suddenly, a force yanked him back towards the castle and his eyes open for a moment more. His nerves were shot at the moment, so he couldn't feel the hand wrapped around his tail, but he could hear the clanking of metal behind him.

"T-T-Takemichi? Wh-wh-what're you d-d-doin'...?"

"Kyoko told me Makoto told her you was doin' somethin' stupid."

"B-but I g-g-gotta...!"

"What? Freeze to death?"

He was dragged through the snow, and when he used the last of his strength to turn himself over he saw Kiyotaka's unconscious and half-dressed body slung over the tiny armor set's shoulders. A smirk played along his lips and his eyes drifted closed again.

Takemichi already had a fire going and left Mondo on the floor while setting Taka down in a chair. He took Mondo's old jacket, the "cape" the latter took off earlier that the suit brought down, and wrapped it around the smaller man like a blanket. Taka took a liking to it immediately, snuggling his face into the high collar. He then haphazardly threw a blanket in Mondo's direction.

"It is incredible how stupid people can really be…" observed Byakuya with disgust, who just happened to be in the room at the time.

"Oh, hey, Moneybags, can ya pitch in a little?"

"Why should I?"

"Well, we're all cursed here, ya know. It ain't just you. An' these two won't be much help breakin' it if they both die."

The lockbox shifted in a way that suggested, if he still had one, he would've turned his head away.

Takemichi didn't argue. "Fine. Do whatcha want. I'm gonna go get some soup started or somethin'. These dumbasses need warming up, pronto."

He left and Byakuya sat there for a bit, the orange of the flames dancing along his flat green metal faces, glinting against his silver key. The massive animal beside him shivered in the corner of his vision. He turned again, and noticed that the blanket wasn't even touching the prince. He sighed.

_Am I really the only one with an ounce of competence here?_

He waddled over and snapped his lid down on the edge of the fabric. He dragged the blanket inch by inch over his massive body, all the way up to the neck. Mondo squirmed and hummed softly, clinging it as close as possible. Byakuya left him there without a word.

When Mondo woke again, he was on the floor in the den, curled up in front of the fire like somebody's pet. Lots of objects were gathered around. Most annoyingly, the clothes Taka had thrown off outside were slung over his horn.

"The hell…? I ain't a dryin' rack…" he complained, but his energy was so sapped from the ordeal he let it be. He looked over to see some of his guard squeaking into view, delivering some soup. Taka was asleep in Mondo's chair, nestled within Mondo's jacket. For some reason, he didn't mind.

He nudged him on the leg with his back paw. "Bro… bro wake up… food's here…"

His heavy eyelids heaved open, lingering at the halfway point. "Hmm-ah...? Wha...? What foo…" He blinked, recognizing what Mondo just called him. "Bro...?"

They didn't have time to dwell on it, at least for the rest of the day and that night, as the others force-fed them soup and tea and didn't let the pair out of their sight, but both knew that their relationship shifted radically. No longer were they enemies or prisoner and captor. No, they were the same, they realized. Equals. Two lonely, ostracized people whom fate had decided to intertwine. Two friends.

* * *

Takaaki tugged his coat close to his person. The cold reminded him grimly of two nights ago, when he was led to his doom and held under lock and key by a monster, and how at this very moment his son suffered the same fate. Hopefully, after tonight, that would no longer be the case.

By nightfall, the storm had calmed down. The snow fell and the wind blew, but much less violently. Still, most were not out and about, stowed away in either their homes or the local tavern. The latter was where Takaaki was headed.

People started whispering as soon as he walked through the door.

"Oh there he is, that Ishimaru..."

"What's he doing here? Drinking away his sorrows for getting what he deserves?"

He slammed his fist down hard on the bar, stunning even the drunks to silence. "All of you, shut up! We can't let petty squabbling get in the way! We're all in very real danger!"

"What are you talking about? What's the danger?"

He barked at the stranger, "That thing! It's heartless! It took my son! Threw him in a dungeon!"

"Wait, who locked up your kid?" asked another.

He lunged, snatching the man by his lapels. "A beast! A horrible, monstrous beast! We have to kill it!"

"A beast?" cried one in surprise.

"What kind of beast?" injected another.

"A terrific, ugly thing! It was like a cat, but the size of a bear! It was massive, with orange fur and stripes and the ears of a wolf! And it had the horn of a demon sprouting from its head!"

He flew into a fit of coughs that were drowned out by everyone else's laughter.

"Where'd ya see it? At the bottom of a bottle?" someone joked.

"I'm being serious! It lives in the woods, in an old abandoned castle!"

"A castle? Right next door? Now I know you're full of shit!"

"Is that really a surprise, considering who his father is?"

People were grabbing him by the arms, hauling him towards the door.

"Wait! No, please, you have to listen!"

His protests fell on deaf ears. They tossed him out into the snow, their laughter filling his frostbitten ears. He almost resolved himself to going back alone, when a hand reached down to help him up. She had been in the tavern as well, but unlike the other townsfolk she was quiet during his ravings. Contemplative.

"Ms. Ikusaba?"

She didn't reply, just held her hand out still. He took it, and she pulled him up.

"Come with me."

She pulled him along and into her home, the walls decorated with dozens of trophy heads and sets of antlers.

"Do you believe me?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. I've had my suspicions for a while, actually. I've seen things hunting in those woods, you know."

"You have? Then why didn't you say anything at the tavern? People adore you, they would actually believe you!"

"Ishimaru, you overestimate my power. Something that sounds like the ravings of a madman coming from my lips will still sound mad. These people, they live in a small world, they trust in what they know beyond all else. We need to prove it to them without a shadow of a doubt if you want your son back."

He coughed a few times. "And how do we do that?"

She gave him a wolfish smirk. It was strange, unsuited to her usually stony face. It was as if the feature was mirrored from some other place and stuck haphazardly to her visage.

"I have a plan."


	7. Something Sweet... and Almost Kind

The pair were lethargic the following day as they recovered. They couldn't do much with themselves besides slowly warm back up. At one point, Mondo inched over to the firewood storage rack and snagged one of the pieces of wood. He clawed at it, and Kiyotaka thought it was merely feline instincts driving him, but as he observed him whittle away the general form of a dog took shape. As he etched little notches into its surface to represent the fluffiness of its fur, Taka offered his input.

"Wow, bro, that looks so nice! Where did you learn to do that?"

"Oh, it's nothin'. Just picked it up a… a couple years ago…" He hid it under his paw. "Oughta make somethin' worthwhile out of these claws, I figured…"

"I think it's great that you kept it up for so long! I'm sure you've improved a great deal since then!"

His ears perked up. "Well, if ya like it, I got more of 'em in my…" He fell silent a moment, realizing that perhaps the place he was about to mention may be a sore spot, but he said it anyway. "...in my room. If ya wanna go back there, that is. I'd understand if ya said no, though, considerin' I was such a prick back there..."

"Well, maybe some other time," he suggested softly. The subject of the room brought back a curiosity that had been nipping at him. "Can I… ask you something…?"

"Shoot."

"That painting… was that... you? Is that what you used to look like? The person who wasn't ripped up, I mean."

He shook his head. "Nah, nah. That's my big brother."

"Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to disturb him! Would you tell him I was just trying to spruce up when you get the chance?"

Mondo stared at him for a solid minute, wondering what the hell he was talking about. Then he remembered Taka had no metric for what objects in the castle were enchanted or not. "Oh, wait, I get it! Ya misunderstood! The painting ain't my brother, it's just a painting _of_ him! My real brother, he's… he's dead."

"Oh."

"Yeah. He died right before this place got hexed. Literally, the moment before it happened. Didn't…" He hung his head and sighed, his horn hiding his face, "didn't make this shit any easier…"

"I'm so sorry. That must have been horrible, losing a sibling and your humanity in one fell swoop..."

Mondo heard a sniffle and looked up. There was a tear running down Taka's cheek.

"C'mon man… ya don't gotta cry..."

Tears kept coming. "Why shouldn't I?! I think it's a perfectly reasonable reaction! Don't you?!"

"Well, I-- I guess. It's just-- ya don't gotta cry over me! I don't deserve it."

"Who told you that?!"

"N-nobody! Just me!"

"Well I think you're wrong! I think you deserve sympathy!"

"Why?"

"Because…" He was quiet for a moment. "Because… you're here. Despite what's happened to you, you're still here. That takes so much effort. I hope you understand that."

"Effort? I hardly do anythin' besides _exist_ most days..."

He wiped his face on his sleeve. "Some days, that's all you can do. So long as you keep working towards something, I think you deserve plenty."

The pair became silent again. Mondo's eyes wandered back to the carving in his paws. He studied it, musing on Kiyotaka's words. He gave it a thoughtfully placed knick with his claw.

"So… what do _you_ do to pass the time?" He said eventually, their previous conversation wrung dry.

"Read. Oh, I love to read! I want to go to a top university, to redeem my family and all, so I study every day. Well, I did, before I came here..." he said wistfully, then added, "Don't worry about that last bit, however! I poured over every page in that little bookshop in the village, I know it all by heart. There isn't anything more for me to learn from there. It is a shame, though. If we were in a larger town, there probably would have been more variety, more to learn. Maybe there would be an _actual_ library."

Mondo mulled all that over, then he got an idea. "Say, I wanna show ya something. But first, ya hafta close yer eyes." He hopped to his feet and took his hand. "C'mon, let's go!"

"Okay!" He replied with a giggle, hiding his face in his elbow.

They ran through the halls together until Mondo stopped him.

"Okay, we're at the door. Just let me lead ya in, alright? I'll tell ya when you can look."

"Understood!"

Mondo gently pulled his hand along and Taka stepped slowly with it. Then, the paw wrapped around his hand paused again.

"Alright... now."

Kiyotaka uncovered his eyes and his vision was flooded with shelves and shelves of books, lining the walls from floor to ceiling. Countless volumes upon volumes on every subject imaginable! He spun around the library, drinking in the majesty of it all.

"Do ya like it?"

"Like it?! I love it! I don't think I've ever seen this many books in all my life!"

Mondo's chest swelled. "Well, I'm glad, 'cause it's all yours!"

Taka gasped, "Are you sure?!"

"Trust me, bro, I'm never gonna use it, 'cept as a napping spot." His gaze wandered up to the painted ceiling high above them. "Me an' Daiya were never bookish, but Ma was always tryin' to get us to be. Hired all kinds 'a tutors and junk. Daiya could fake payin' attention well enough, but I'm a pretty shit actor. I always fell asleep." He chuckled. "Anyways, all that's to say that I feel much better 'bout this place bein' in your hands than mine."

Taka's eyes were watering again. He ran over, a few tears spilling as he did so, and gave the beast a hug.

"You're so kind!"

Mondo blushed profusely beneath his fur as he rubbed his hackles. "Aw, c'mon man, ya don't hafta say that…"

"I will, because it's true!" He declared.

As days flew by and grew into weeks, the duo spent that time together. Whether it was within the walls of the library, Kiyotaka chipping away at the collection as Mondo snoozed nearby, or during meals, or when they fetched water for Sakura (whose fallen petal count was steadily increasing), they were practically joined at the hip.

They engaged with one another's hobbies, too. Kiyotaka would read to Mondo, who tried his best to stay awake. When Kawasaki returned to the castle, Mondo introduced her to Taka and tried to teach the latter how to ride. This ended in Taka landing flat in the snow several times until he was finally able to get on the horse's back… only to slip off again as soon as she stirred. Both laughed uproariously and Mondo flopped down on the ground to join him.

The objects watched the scene play out through the windows with great interest.

"It's happening, it's h-happening!" Stuttered Toko, a dark purple leather-bound journal, her braided straps pressed against the glass like hands. "We're g-gonna get out of here!"

"Hell yeah we are! I'm frigging psyched!" cheered Leon.

Celeste commented with her typical composure, "It is peculiar, though, that they just seemed to come together on their own so quickly..."

Hifumi, the inkwell and pen who had suggested that bed plot the other day, chimed in, "I know, right? It's only been a week and a half and their relationship meter's nearly maxed out! Though given our time limit a speedrun is a necessity..."

"That is not precisely what I am referring to." The way she spoke had some edge, as she was miffed at being interrupted. "What intrigues me is _why_ Junko might do this. Were I in her shoes, I wouldn't introduce my opponent's trump card this early, should he be so… easily charmed."

"Well, then it's a good thing you're not the one that cursed us, then!" Leon rejected her misgivings, "C'mon! Quit being such a spoilsport! Kyoko and Byakuya are bad enough, we don't need more!"

"Hey! D-don't talk about him that way, cork-for-brains!" Toko interjected.

"Jeez, why's that the thing everybody jumps to…?" he mumbled.

"While I cannot speak for those two, I can say with certainty that I am not being a spoilsport. I am simply trying to view this from all possible angles, as anyone who plans to win a game should."

Another day, another petal or two lost, and another session the pair spent in that library. As Kiyotaka searched the shelves for a new tome, Mondo stalked about on his own to pass the time. Then, he discovered it sitting on a tucked-away desk-- the old bookbinding desk Toko and Hifumi would bicker over long ago. It was simple, really, just a humble little item, but it stirred in him a level of anxiety he hadn't experienced since Kiyotaka's father broke in.

A bottle of paste.

His horn felt monumentally heavy all of a sudden, like its weight could tear his thick neck from his shoulders. The paste. It presented opportunity, both good and bad. Should he take it, should he use it in the manner his conscience was ripping at his insides to do for so long, it would open a door he could never close. The wreckage of yet another one of his many mistakes would be on full display, and Kiyotaka would see what he had done and see him once more as the abomination he truly was. And that spoke nothing of the feelings of the one he hurt…

"Bro?"

Mondo nearly jumped out of his skin. "Oh Jesus!" He whipped his head around to meet his gaze and wheezed, "Taka, you scared the crap outta me…"

"Are you alright? What are you looking at?" He leaned around him to see the desk. Strange. At some point Mondo had drawn much closer, his paw now hovering near the bottle.

"Oh, it's just, uh, this paste here I was eyein'..." he said, trying to be as casual as possible, as if he hadn't just had a panic attack over seeing some glue. God, did he feel pathetic.

"Oh! Are you going to use it for one of your woodworking projects?"

"I was… uh… thinkin' about it."

He grinned. "I bet it will be extremely useful! Now come, I found something very interesting! You may even stay awake the whole time!"

He ran off and Mondo called after him with good humor, "Oh, is that a challenge?!" Before he took him up on that, however, he glanced back to the paste. He hesitated for a moment, then stuffed it into his jacket. He didn't have to use it, but it'd burn a hole in his pocket until he finally manned up and made a goddamn decision. It was a decisive move in and of itself, one Junko would not be happy about.


	8. Days in the Sun

Byakuya Togami had been suspicious of Kiyotaka Ishimaru from the start. Firstly, Junko had let him and his father into the castle. Second, he had volunteered himself as a prisoner and then gotten over that predicament at lightning speed. That said nothing of his equally quick turnaround on the dull brute that ran this place...

Was he really meant to just stand on the sidelines and buy that this man was such a softhearted dope? The answer to that was likely yes, which gave all the more reason for him to push against it.

His own theory was that Kiyotaka was a lackey of Junko's, pretending to be interested in Mondo to provide them false hope and waste their precious time. In his eyes, it was the only thing that really made sense given his rash behavior. That, and the fairy was known to collaborate. During the first year, when Kuwata had been driven bonkers by the closed quarters and rolled off into the forest, he encountered a changeling. She started as a woman before quickly turning lupine and thrashing him about so terribly his stitches were undone. His skin peeled to such a degree after the attack it had to be stapled in places. And so, even if this were not _that_ changeling, who was to say it wasn't another, or even a human suckered into servitude of the she-bear by stepping into a fairy circle or the like?

But the thing is, he had to prove it. His form provided a method for him to do so, conveniently enough, but he had to trap the lad in a position where he could properly take advantage of it. And that was why he planned to take Kiyotaka to the one place he was never supposed to find, to shock the invader off his guard with its contents.

Well, he _would_ do that, as soon as he got to the library to collect him. Curse these stupid, stubby little legs...

He did make it eventually, and still in the morning hours as well. That was fortunate, because that meant the master had no chance of slinking about just yet, which would interfere with his plot.

Kiyotaka greeted him loudly, not even looking up from his book, "Hello, Byakuya! Let's all do our very best today!"

"Yes, indeed…" replied the lockbox darkly, before he noticed something and asked, "How did you know it was me?"

"You jingle when you move. I think it's kind of cute!"

Hm, well, he supposed he was desensitized to the noise. But how was he supposed to take that compliment? How was being noisy supposed to be endearing?

"Nevermind that. There's something you need to see."

Kiyotaka was curious and let Byakuya lead him through the West Wing, to the blocked-off door. The lockbox positioned himself by an old chair. "If you crawl between the legs, you'll find a gap between the furniture and the door large enough where you can open it and squeeze through."

He got down on his knees and peered through. "Are… you sure about this?"

"Yes. It's very important that you see what's inside."

Kiyotaka did as directed, reaching the gap and rising to his feet. He slowly turned the knob and steeled himself for whatever may be on the other side.

Inside was a room much like his own, though the walls were papered in laurel green instead, and in the middle of the floor sat a bizarre wooden apparatus. It was large, its main structure about as tall as a man with an additional bit of machinery on top that added a few more feet. It had all sorts of beams to support the structure and hinges and hooks and hundreds and hundreds of threads passed through it. As he approached, it sprang to life.

"Wait a moment, please! I'm not decent!" came a soft voice.

A belt of punched cards sewn end-to-end fed into the top part of the machine. The shuttle moved back and forth at a ludicrous speed, and the thread it moved along began forming into a piece of textile. The process produced a din of clacks and clicks so severe Taka was forced to cover his ears.

"Yes, she's certainly not your grandmother's loom," Byakuya noted Taka's reaction, having followed him inside. "I don't appreciate it much either, personally..."

" _They_ , if you don't mind," corrected the loom.

"Oh?"

"When you're stuck as something completely outside the gender binary for a few years and find it easier than conforming one way or another, you're liable to start questioning a few things about yourself," they explained.

Byakuya made a little hum of indifference. He set his trap now, as the racket made a perfect cover and Taka's attention was arrested by the imagery taking shape on the fabric. It was a design of earthy tones, green and brown with touches of gold and white in abstract, lacing patterns. In the center of it was a cherubic face with golden doe eyes and light brown hair. The lockbox knew it well enough to not be distracted.

The clamor ceased.

"Hello, nice to meet you. I'm Chihiro Fujisaki."

The human bowed. "Good day to you, Chihiro! My name is Kiyotaka Ishimaru!" He tilted his head back up, admiring the tiny tapestry. "And might I say, this is fine craftsmanship! I've never seen something weaved so quickly!" He straightened himself and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I've never seen someone weave at all, so perhaps I am not the best judge… but still! You are very efficient!"

"Oh! Thank you!" The wood of the machine squeaked from a happy wiggle. "See, I'm a Jacquard loom! Do you see the chain of cards up there? Each card represents a row of the pattern. The holes in the card direct which threads are used in which place on the design. It makes weaving so much easier!"

"That's fascinating! You seem to know a lot about it, I love your energy!"

Their voice became much more subdued. "Uh, yeah. When I was human, I used to weave on a machine just like this. Well, it is my machine, the spell sort of... infused me with it, I guess you'd say. So you could say I… know it inside and out."

He laughed hardily.

"I like you! I wish I had met you sooner!"

"Yeah. I've been alone here for a while, it's nice to have any company. But you're nice-- a lot, but nice. I bet he really likes you."

There was a touch of sadness to their voice, especially by the end.

"Why are you alone?"

"I don't know. I don't know what I did wrong. I'm not even upset about it anymore, it's not like it hurt aside from the shock of it. I just wish he'd come in so we could talk about it. Because as it is, it almost feels like he doesn't care, and I _know_ that's not true."

"What… what are you talking about?"

Byakuya huffed, "Why don't you actually use your eyes and _look_ at them instead of gawking at what they can do?"

He didn't appreciate his tone, but it did prompt him (if unconsciously) to give the loom another once-over. He noticed something glaringly obvious that he overlooked because of all the excitement: a set of four deep gashes in the wood near the top of their right leg.

"Wait… you're not… no, no way! He would never…! He's a good person! He wouldn't hurt a fly!" He knew Mondo. Despite how he looked, he wasn't a monster! He wouldn't hurt an innocent person like Chihiro!

"Who are you going to believe, your heart or your eyes?" said Byakuya clinically.

Kiyotaka backed away in horror as Chihiro scooted and leaned closer, their whole frame creaking.

"Taka, I didn't want to believe it either. It didn't make sense for him to lash out so severely-- that's why I need to talk to him."

"It-- it can't be! H-he wouldn't!" His heel landed somewhere unstable and he slipped backwards into the door. He fell into a pile of coins. "What…?"

Yes, finally, Byakuya had him right where he wanted him. Junko had filled his insides with coinage of such a common, worthless material as iron to spite him, surely-- to fill him with despair so she could feast. However, it came in handy to exploit the Fair Folk's two weaknesses: their compulsion to count and sort like things and their aversion to that metal. The fiends couldn't touch it without burning their skin.

...Which is why it didn't make sense with his current hypothesis that Kiyotaka ignored it. He merely pushed the door open and scurried out, not even paying his ploy any mind. It was an insult. As he swallowed down his contents again, though, he wasn't discouraged. After all, he only proved the man was human-- that hardly made him trustworthy.

Kiyotaka ran to Mondo's room. The beast was only just stirring and lifted his heavy head with a knitted, puzzled brow. "Taka? Bro, what's wrong?"

He dropped to his knees and held his fuzzy cheeks in both hands. Tears spilled down his own cheeks. "Please, please tell me you didn't do this!"

"What're ya--"

"I'm talking about Chihiro! Tell me it's not true! Tell me you didn't hurt them!"

There it was again, that vulnerable glint in those lavender eyes. He dragged his head out of his grasp, turning so his expression could not be seen. "Jesus Christ. Ya got me. Ya see me fer what I really am." He stood on four paws and slunk to the table, propping himself up to loom over Yasuhiro, Aoi, and Sakura, dejected. "You can go ahead an' leave me now. I… don't think you've been a prisoner fer a while now. I don't blame ya if ya don't wanna be around me anymore."

"Dude, what are you doing?!" whispered Hiro in panic.

"No."

Kiyotaka's rejection of the idea cut through the thickening tension in the atmosphere.

Mondo turned back to him. "What…?"

"I won't leave you! Not until you tell me why you did it! Tell me so that I can understand!"

Mondo dipped his head, wishing he could do anything in the world rather than relive that day.

"Fine."

The memories flooded his vision, and he tried his damnedest to relay the imagery and feelings as accurately as he was able…

"It was all about… bein' strong…"

_Strong. He had to be strong. It was a virtue instilled in him since the moment of his birth. One day, he would carry the kingdom on his back, and any sign of strain on his end would plunge it into chaos. Daiya knew that as well, and he could portray that fortitude effortlessly. He was not only physically impressive but charming and cool-headed. He was a paragon, especially to the little brother who lacked such charisma._

_There he was, that little brother, haunting his own enchanted castle like a lost spirit. Reflecting on this instance later, Mondo reasoned it would have been better if he really were a spirit. At least then he couldn't damage the people he vowed to protect._

_He came across Chihiro's room, the room the weaver was now stuck in because of his carelessness._

_"You can come in! I'm just working!"_

_He stepped inside, and indeed the loom currently toiled away at a tapestry. It was a very specific tapestry: the one they commissioned for Daiya's coronation. His old face rendered in thread staring back at him seared him to the bone._

_"Chihiro, stop. You don't have to finish it."_

_"I... I do, though! I can't just sit here in this palace doing nothing. I have to keep going!"_

_The air between them hung heavy and painfully silent._

_"This situation… what happened to us, to our bodies… it's horrible, but in a way it's familiar to me. I told you before, my old body… I have always been cursed, even before now. It was lithe and frail, and you helped me train it to become strong in my time here. And now, even though I can't leave, even though I can only move so much… I have to keep pressing forward! I have to keep moving! That's the only way to become strong! Just like you and D--!"_

_The entire speech, accompanied by the constant clicking of the punch card belt and the valiant face of his dead brother forming on the fabric, battered into him at all angles. It mocked him and all his failures-- his ceaseless moping and his boundless fragility and inadequacy-- so severely it bruised. It was as if he was caught in a hailstorm of misery._

**_"SHUT UP!"_ **

_The monster did what monsters do._

_He hadn't even felt his arm move. The only things he could process were the deep claw marks slashed into a leg of Chihiro's frame and the shards of wood he tore away from his friend-- pieces of his friend-- laying on the floor._

_Mondo was frozen, brain overflowing with horror and guilt over what he'd just done._

_"M-Mondo…?" spoke Chihiro, voice shaking. Right-- looms-- looms couldn't die. The objects, they could only die if they were destroyed completely. Shattered. Burned. Torn to scraps. They couldn't even feel pain. But that didn't matter. Mondo was drowning in self-hatred, so he couldn't conceive of a world where every little thing he did didn't have dire consequences._

_He fled, shut the door, and pushed furniture against it. It wasn't to prevent anyone from finding out, rather to his feverish mind it was a protective barrier. A barrier to shield Chihiro because Mondo was a horrible monster who couldn't be trusted, who lived to cause others pain..._

"An' that's it. That's the whole fuckin' thing. I broke my fuckin' promise an' I hurt Chihiro for no fuckin' reason. No-- no, there was a fuckin' reason. It's 'cause they were still tryna carry on with their life when I couldn't even dream of the same thing, an' it--" He wanted to say so terribly that it hurt, it hurt to see others with a lust for life when he had none. Instead, he dropped back to the floor, curling in on himself with his back to Taka. "Nevermind. It don't matter how I feel, it don't change what I did. It don't change _what_ I am."

"Mondo…" Taka placed his hand on his back. "I… won't deny that you... treated Chihiro poorly. And… nothing can ever really change that..."

"Gee, poindexter, you're makin' me feel so much better," he snarled.

"But Mondo, ignoring that past, shutting it away, it helps no one! You have to know that darkness so you can work towards a brighter future!"

Mondo's paw slipped into his pocket. He thumbed the bottle of paste, turning it around and around. "I… don't think I can…"

"That's where you and I disagree. You can. I know you can. I _know_ you can because you've already been working towards it."

Mondo's paw ceased. His ears twitched.

"That's why you started woodworking, isn't it? That's why you were so shaken by the sight of that glue a week ago. Making reparations, literal and metaphorical, has been on your mind for a long, long time. You haven't pursued it because you're--"

"Weak?" He bitterly supplied, shooting him a glare.

He stood his ground. "No. It's because you're afraid. You're afraid of what will happen, if reaching out into this fire you started will burn you, and that's not weakness! That's natural! That's being a human being! And contrary to what your appearance suggests, that is what you are!"

The anger drained from Mondo's face, replaced with something between awe and gratitude. Knowing that someone still saw him as a person after hearing he did something so horrible, a person who can change for the better, it meant the world to him. _Kiyotaka_ meant the world to him...

He was convinced. He found the fine block of wood he saved for the occasion and they made a beeline for Chihiro's room. He shredded through the pile of broken furniture, until…

The grinning black-and-white bear emerged from behind a dresser. "Hello, hello, hello! And just what are you doing, your highness?"

"It ain't any a' your fuckin' business, bear!"

Taka, baffled, cut in, "Bro, what is that?"

"That's the thing that cursed everybody!"

"Oh, I think it is my business what you do to the furniture! Don't you remember? You're the one who _so generously_ offered me this castle! Just like you _so generously_ gave Chihiro a deathly injury! No take-backsies on either account!"

His hackles spiked. "I'M GONNA RIP YER GODDAMN SNOUT OFF!"

He lunged at the monochrome creature, throwing the dresser to the side and swiping at the face. He made a connection, but in the blink of an eye, the bear wasn't a bear anymore. Standing before the door was a strawberry blonde woman, her face hacked to pieces and drizzling pink. Both Kiyotaka and Mondo gazed at the gory scene in shock. She cracked a smile, which shouldn't have been possible since the muscles in her face seemed as carved as a Christmas ham. Drool leaked from the corner of her mouth.

"Puhuhuhu! You really know how to tease a girl, huh, Owada? This _is_ getting interesting!" She stuck out her tongue and waved. "Well, toodles!"

She disappeared, leaving the duo completely dumbstruck. Mondo gaped at the blood that ran down his paw. His expression didn't change when the illusion faded into nothingness. He was frozen once again. Something touched his arm.

"Bro… come now… Chihiro…"

Mondo didn't know if he himself was having trouble processing the entire sentence or if Taka was having trouble forming it. He glanced down and met the steady fire of the young man's eyes, and he was thawed.

"Uh… yeah, yeah," he said with a heavy nod. He opened the door, Taka keeping him steady. Chihiro was there. It shouldn't feel like a shock to his system, he knew because of their size they couldn't leave, but it still didn't feel real. He thought he might be running through another one of his worst-case scenarios, but Taka's constant hold on his arm grounded him.

"Hello, Mondo. It's… been a while, hasn't it?" Chihiro's own voice was laced with caution, which was reasonable considering who they were dealing with.

"Yeah… I… I got some, uh… stuff… for you…"

He laid out his supplies and got to work. Apologies and explanations dripped from him slowly throughout the process, like a leaky pipe. This was the only way he could do it without bursting. A full explanation meant he had to disclose the full circumstances of the curse as well-- to tell why the tapestry of Daiya set him on edge. The race, his trespassing in Junko's domain, Daiya's sacrifice-- he told it all. It was painful but necessary, like treating a wound.

The paste dried, the pieces set. They fit in the gaps perfectly, although they were slightly discolored.

"Sorry if it looks a little off. We can't leave these woods, so we're kinda in a crunch for resources..."

"Mondo, it's lovely. Thank you."

Forgiveness came easily, far too easily for his tastes. He wanted Chihiro to scream, to shower him with the boiling fury he thought he deserved, but they did no such thing. Yet again, another show of Chihiro's boundless strength.

"I'm glad you came back. I know it took a lot of courage, and I appreciate it," they said, "Not to mention, I missed you."

He scratched his horn. "I missed you, too."

Kiyotaka rested his head against Mondo. "I'm very proud of you!"

They stayed there together for a while, just chatting. Being drenched in their company made Mondo wonder if he was worthy of all that praise and care. A tiny part of him, though, entertained the idea that maybe worthiness shouldn't even be a factor…

The status of Chihiro was a cause of much gossip between the other residents. Everyone saw the door suddenly ajar. Some, like Makoto, caught a glimpse of Mondo and Kiyotaka paying Chihiro visits after their initial one. Some lucky few witnessed Mondo take a stand against the enchantress that imprisoned them all. Kyoko was one of the latter.

"Makoto, have you noticed anything strange about what's happened recently?" asked the magnifying glass as she strolled with the maneki-neko through a corridor.

"Yeah. I didn't think he and Chihiro would ever patch things up, but I'm really glad I was wrong. He seems a lot happier now. Well, happier than the heightened state of happiness Taka put him in."

"That is something to keep in mind, but I was referring to the incident before that which Byakuya and I saw."

"You mean when Junko showed up as that bear? What's strange about it?"

"It's not the visit itself, rather the timing. Why would she care about what he was doing at that moment? That is the key to this whole thing."

"The key to what?"

"Her plans. This spell she placed on all of us, and the reason she did so."

"You really think it's something that complicated? It seems like a straightforward fairytale curse to me. You know, true love's kiss and the frog turns back into a prince. That sort of thing."

She let out a little hum. Kyoko was hard to read even back when she had a face, but Makoto could sense the disappointment and slight frustration that her detective's line of reasoning was challenging for others to follow.

"Perhaps we should go over the exact specifications the fairy laid out all those years ago. That may clear it up."

They met with Yasuhiro in the prince's chamber, Takemichi boosting them up so they sat on the table.

"Hey dudes, what's up? You thriving on these good vibes we're finally getting? I know I sure am."

"Uh, sure," replied Makoto awkwardly.

Kyoko got straight to the point. "Hiro, can you play for us the day when Junko first came to the palace and laid down the rules to break the spell?"

"Sure thing."

His face vanished and within the crystal ball the room they currently stood in took shape, seeped in goldenrod. It looked like a proper bedroom back then. The enchantress in her she-bear guise lay on the floor, holding Sakura in her vase, tracing her claw along one of her delicate petals. In burst the freshly beastly Mondo, still covered in his brother's blood.

_"WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM?!"_

_"It's my property now! I can do whatever I want to you freeloaders! Puhuhuhu!"_

_"They had nothin' to do with anythin'!"_

_"I know! And doesn't that just fill you with despair?"_

His ears flattened. " _Change. Them. Back. Now."_

 _"Tsk, tsk, tsk,"_ the fairy tutted, _"It's very rude to make such drastic demands as a guest! You want to be human again, you have to play by house rules!"_

_"Play?"_

_"Think of it like a game!"_ She placed the vase on the floor. _"Your friend Sakura here, she's the timer. Once these petals are gone, you lose. Don't worry, you're safe 'til your 21st birthday, so at least by then you'll be legally allowed to drink away your sorrows!"_

_"But what does that even mean?! What do I gotta do to fix it?!"_

_"Oh, it's so simple! All you have to do is make a certain someone learn to love you as you are!"_

_"A… certain someone…? Who?"_

The bear bared her claws, her face going red. _"What, d'ya think I'd say it flat-out, just like that?! No, no, no! That's part of the game!"_

She went on to explain the minutiae, how they couldn't go beyond the forest, how Sakura could only be watered via Aoi, etc. Little things that made it all the harder. When the memory ended, Kyoko turned to her companion.

"Do you understand now, Makoto?"

Makoto twitched his paw, holding it beneath his chin. "I… think I have an idea of what you're getting at. I'll have to file away this information for later."

Kyoko looked over to Sakura, a good deal of her branches barren.

"Let's hope there will be a later…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof, this one was a doozy. there's a lot of POV switches and flashbacks in this one, so I hope I portrayed that well enough without it being confusing, especially since this is a really important chapter to the story! thank you for the support so far!


	9. Just a Little Change

"A ball? When there's only two of us? Where'd ya get a wacky idea like that?" Questioned Mondo with a raised brow.

Kiyotaka grinned, leaning so far forward his chest was nearly flat on the table. "Oh, it was just something I was thinking about! I skimmed a pamphlet of old dance steps here by chance the other day, and it reminded me that Makoto said there was a ballroom here as well. I think it would be a fun activity!"

Mondo couldn't say no to his ever-eager face and gave a thumbs up in return. "Alright, bro! If you think so, I'm down! Let's get on it!"

The ballroom wasn't exactly a mess in the same sense as other rooms in the castle. It was just extremely dusty and covered in cobwebs from lack of use-- what most homes' messiest rooms would be, but most homes didn't house a beast with sharp teeth and claws prone to rampaging when his temper flared. As it stood, the ballroom was a piece of work, but Taka adored work, as it always built to something grand in his philosophy.

Kiyotaka organized the cleaning efforts while the master of the house directed the servants to fill them out. The royal guard, being the only ones with height and all limbs accounted for, did most of the sweeping and dusting. Sayaka used her little porcelain hands to grip fabric ends as she shined the brass doorknobs and tugged down raggedy old curtains. Leon barrelled into rusted stuck shutters, finally letting the room breathe. Once the floor was free of dirt, Makoto, Kyoko, and a reluctant Byakuya finished them off with a polish. Hifumi all the while was on trash duty, which he took very seriously, to many of the others' chagrin.

Celeste assigned herself a job and enlisted Toko and Takemichi to assist her. That job was tailoring and modifying some old formal wear to suit the prince's… change in body type. Celestia was the idea generator while Takemichi was the seamster by virtue of being the only one with fingers-- with built-in thimbles to boot. Toko cut fabric when needed, for the author-turned-journal was surprisingly deft with scissors.

"Stay still, I need to take your measurements," Celeste spoke to her client via the King of Diamonds (an amusing sight, as the illustrations on her king cards were of a chunky persian cat in a frilled collar), "Are you so against being properly dressed?"

"I'm tryin', alright? An' as long as I don't look like a gothic lolita chick by the end of this, I'll be cool."

Lucky for him, that was not what she had in mind. It wasn't anything too extreme, either. They modified his pants to have a true tail hole rather than merely a rip in the seat and gave it detailed gold embroidery to echo his old coat (which he would not let them touch). Using several old dress shirts, Celestia's crew fashioned a poet blouse fit for a massive, handsome beast.

Finally, Chihiro had their own task. Like Celeste's, it was self-assigned and involved redressing half of the couple. However, Chihiro focused on Kiyotaka. The man already dressed formally, but nothing about his regular outfit reflected the extravagance of such an evening. So, Chihiro got to work, vowing to make a garment worthy of the man who mended their relationship with the prince and who was sure to save them all from their bewitchment.

The evening rolled around. Mondo stood at the bottom of the stairs, nervously fidgeting in his new clothes as he waited for Taka. He hadn't worn a shirt ever since his best one tore clean off during his transformation. It felt strange. Good, but strange.

Kiyotaka emerged from his room and descended the stairs. Trailing him and draped over his shoulders was the present from Fujisaki: a long cape of red and gold that flickered like flames as he moved. His eyes locked on the prince, rubies that shone bright even in the dimmest light.

"H… holy shit…" Mondo breathed. He was so beautiful, radiant even. He didn't deserve him. He didn't. "You look… uh…" His face felt like it was on fire. "...really cool."

 _"Really cool?!" Why the hell did I say that?! That ain't romantic!_ He screamed internally.

Taka smiled as widely as ever. "Thank you, bro! You look dashing as well! You're even wearing a shirt!"

He laughed, perhaps too loudly due to anxiety. Taka joined him, though, so it wasn't too awkward.

"...Why _do_ you not wear shirts, anyway?" he asked after the laughter fizzled out.

Mondo's expression changed, now somewhat irked but mostly tired. His brow was a thin, straight line. "Taka…"

"What?"

He silently pointed up to his horn.

The implication dawned on him. "Oooooooh! _That's_ why! I see now!"

He rolled his eyes and chuckled, "You fuckin' dork…"

They made their way to the ballroom, which sparkled in the candlelight. Sayaka stood on the piano near the dance floor.

"I'm afraid we're short on pianists, so you gentlemen will have to make due with me," she said with a wink. Her key turned on its own and she twirled about her box. The melody was completely different, much slower and softer. Kiyotaka supposed that as an enchanted music box she could do whatever she pleased in that regard. She sang along to the song, and her voice was mesmerizing.

The pair stood in the center of the dance floor, facing one another. Mondo rubbed his nape. "Uh, forgive me if I'm a lil' rusty. It's been awhile."

He assured, "No need to apologise, I guarantee I'll be far worse. The last time I participated in a dance was back when my grandfather had his title. I must have been five or six years old..."

"Aww…" Mondo unconsciously cooed. To save face, he added in a more teasing tone, "Who'd ya dance with, yer daddy?"

"Actually, yes!" The playfulness seemed lost on him.

Mondo shook his head and put on an air of confidence. "Damn, if that's what I'm competin' with, this'll be the best damn dance of yer life."

That was something he could bite into. "Oh, is that so? I'd like to see you back up that claim, your highness!"

Oh, he loved it when he teased. The relationship had started with competition, after all. "Yer on!"

It turned out that both of them made poor dancers, at least at first. Mondo had never performed these steps with huge meaty back paws in place of the usual appendages, and ended up stepping on Taka's feet more than he would care to admit. His dance partner brushed it off, though, because he stumbled just as often without Mondo's help.

Mondo cackled, "Damn, we suck!"

Kiyotaka couldn't contain his giggles at his bluntness. "Give it time, give it time!"

After a few changes, the two of them got the hang of it. In no time at all they glided along the floors to Sayaka's lovely music.

"See? Bit by bit, you get better bit by bit…" rambled Taka sweetly. He rested his head against Mondo's chest. Mondo hoped he didn't hear how his heart raced when he did that.

Taka was… Taka was everything. He was intelligent and daring and he never gave up on him. He had so much faith in him, it was so strange. Mondo wished he could pay that back tenfold, in any way the man desired. The prince never felt this way about another person before. He was… in love… completely, hopelessly in love. And Taka... didn't return that love. He couldn't have, otherwise Mondo wouldn't be covered in fur and lugging around that horn. The dance, laying his head upon his chest-- these gestures were all platonic, despite how they appeared. Though that stung, he wouldn't dream of pursuing him. He didn't deserve someone as wonderful as Kiyotaka...

He nestled his chin in his partner's soft, coal black hair. Well, at least he could pretend for a little while. At least until the notes of this gorgeous song died out, he could pretend he was worth a damn.

When that time came, Taka asked if they could go to Mondo's room, and he obliged. The pair sat down beside each other. The palace residents, of course, crowded the doorway in anticipation.

"I had a marvelous time." Taka's voice was soft and warm, like an old blanket Mondo could wrap himself up in.

"Yeah, it was… it was really nice."

His head pitched slightly and he blinked slowly. He looked dreamy. "I'd like to share dozens of nights just like it with you."

He returned the tender gaze. "Whatever you'd like, bro. Whatever you'd like."

His eyelids, hovering in a half lidded state before, lifted. "Mondo, would you mind if I… did something? I promise I'll be quick."

"Not at all! We're bros, after all! You can do whatev--!"

Mondo didn't get the chance to complete that thought before Kiyotaka planted a kiss directly on his fuzzy lips. The enchanted objects gasped. Mondo's eyes were the size of saucers, and when Taka opened his they grew nearly as much to match. He strained before he yanked himself away, as if their lips were magnetic and couldn't be forced apart without great effort.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" The apology fell out of his mouth. "I shouldn't have been so forward! I just thought, with the romantic evening together right out of a storybook, it was perfect! But you weren't initiating anything and I wasn't sure what I should do!"

Mondo kept staring, his pupils practically pinpricks. His whiskers twitched as he spoke weakly, "...What?"

"I wanted to confess it sooner or later, but I wasn't sure how. I'm very new to relationships of… well, any kind. I thought you might… take the lead after I gave you the ball setup. But that's fine, that's fine." He took a deep breath. "Prince Mondo Owada, I am in love with you."

Mondo blinked, then looked at his unchanging paws. His head started to shake. "No, no, no, no. This… this isn't right… this can't be right..."

Kiyotaka couldn't hide his disappointment. "I see. I… I understand if you don't feel the same way…"

Mondo grasped his shoulder. "No, no! That's not what I meant! I love you too, bro! I love you so much! It's just that I should be turnin' human right now an' I ain't!"

"Yeah, dude, this makes no sense!" cried Yasuhiro from the table. "Unless…"

"H-he's not the one…" Toko finished the thought.

Hifumi gasped, "Inconceivable!"

"It's very conceivable. I've literally been saying it this entire time," Byakuya complained.

Leon, who was within the living lockbox, thrust open the lid. "Hold up, were we wasting our time trying to get these two together for like a month and a half?!"

"We have _not_ been wasting our time!" growled Mondo, hugging Taka protectively.

Sayaka, ignoring that comment, gave an unsettled look to the lockbox. "Togami, why is Leon… inside you?"

"He was trying to crash your performance, saying that he should be the one singing. No one wants that, so I took matters into my own hands."

"Or lack thereof," Celeste concluded that tangent and got back to the subject. "But if not Kiyotaka, who else must Mondo win the heart of to break the spell?"

Kyoko chimed in, "That's where we come in, right, Makoto?"

"Yeah! The key to it all is the day Mondo fixed Chihiro!"

"Wh-what about that day?!" exclaimed Taka, "And what does all of this have to do with the curse placed on all of you?!"

"I'm glad you asked," replied Kyoko. "You see, to free us of our bewitchment, a particular unknown party must learn to love Mondo as he is."

"I see…"

Makoto continued, "And through all this time you were here, as the two of you grew closer together, the enchantress that did all this didn't interfere at all."

"Which would be an idiotic thing to do, since supposedly his presence would take away her primary food source-- our despair," supplied Byakuya.

Kyoko nodded. "Exactly. Therefore, Kiyotaka has been a red herring this entire time."

Kiyotaka gasped and cried, "Even I didn't suspect me! It's the perfect cover!"

Toko mumbled under her breath, "You d-didn't suspect anybody, dummy…"

"So then, who is it?" asked Hifumi.

The magnifying glass continued, "Like we said, she didn't interfere, except for one instance…"

"...when Mondo went to Chihiro's room to help them. She tried to keep him from getting in. That means that the two of them making up put a wrench in her plans. The person who needs to love Mondo was involved in the incident!"

"So it is Chihiro then, is it not?" concluded Celeste.

"Ooooo, a love triangle! This is getting… intriguing…" Hifumi said in a really creepy way.

Mondo frowned. "But I don't love Chihiro. I mean, they're my friend and I think they kick ass, but that's all! I wouldn't date 'em!"

Hiro looked apologetic. "Sorry dude, I just don't see any other option. We ruled out Taka, and the only other person involved was Chihiro..."

"No, that's wrong!" shouted the maneki-neko, "There was someone else! Someone who's in this room right now! And that someone is the key we're looking for!"

"And wh-who is that?"

"That someone--" His eyes landed on his target and he pointed boldly with his outstretched paw. "--is _you_!"

Mondo gazed blankly at the beckoning arm pointing in his direction. "What? Me? You guys got cabin fever or somethin'? How can it be me?"

"Think about it: when Junko talked about the curse, did she ever say that the love you have to earn is romantic?"

"Well, uh… I don't really…"

"No, she never did," Hiro confirmed for him.

"Right," Kyoko continued, "all she said was that the mystery party has to learn to love Mondo. No other qualifications or restrictions. That means any sort of love is on the table, including self-love."

"But how does that help us? If anything, the curse being vague makes it more difficult. And it doesn't really rule out Chihiro…" observed the music box.

"Good question, Sayaka!" praised Makoto. "But that fogginess is exactly why it can only be Mondo himself!"

"Aaaand ya lost me," said Hiro.

"Yes, of course," said the deck of cards, beginning to understand, "Chihiro already loved Mondo in the sense of kinship, even before they were cursed. They wouldn't _learn_ anything because it was there to begin with. It would have to be someone with no love in their heart for the prince."

"Oooooooh," said Leon, peeking out from under the lid, not understanding at all, "so it's Togami, then?"

Byakuya was so offended he spat the ball out.

"I mean, you guys _do_ hate each other..." Hiro pointed out.

"Ew, no," replied Mondo curtly.

"You know better than anyone that I wasn't involved in the apology, Mr. Omnipotent Crystal Ball, so it can't be me."

"My name's Hagakure…"

A brief lull as everyone processed the stupidity of that comment.

"Uh… anyway, the only one there who hated Mondo… was Mondo himself," Makoto concluded.

The air was still again as they all processed it.

"It makes sense too, when you consider our misery as a sustainable food source," reasoned Byakuya, "This hex from its very framework seems tailored to making the one it is placed upon extremely guilty. At first I thought that was just a motivating factor, to save not only yourself but those close to you, but it makes far more sense as a tool to perpetuate the person’s suffering, not to mention collect our own. And if that person needs to learn self-respect, they never would, because they are constantly reminded of their mistakes. The guilt compounds with interest.”

Leon was in disbelief. “Wait, what the hell? So the whole reason we’re like this is to make him feel bad?”

“Obviously.”

“She used us as instruments in her plot, so that is what we became…” mused Celeste.

“I’d rather be an instrument than a friggin’ baseball!”

The objects whispered amongst themselves. Taka locked eyes with the beastly prince, “Mondo? You… hate yourself?”

“I… I guess… I just… it’s all my fault. Everything, even what happened to Daiya. And now that I know _I’ve_ been the one holdin’ everybody back…” He glanced at Sakura, sitting there silently with so few of her petals left.

“Mondo, that’s not--”

“Oh jeez! Guys, guys!” Hiro suddenly exclaimed, “There’s something you need to see!”

“Hiro, we’re having a moment.”

“No, _dude_ , you really need to see this.”

His face vanished, and within the crystal the forest appeared. There, in the snow, was a shivering, hacking figure. It was a figure Taka knew very well. He grabbed hold of the glowing orb, his face bathed in golden light.

“Father?”

“Holy shit, the fuck’s he doing out there?!”

“Trying to save me!”

Leon interrupted, “You gotta be shitting me! Has he been out there the whole time?!”

“Surely not, he would be frozen to death by now,” answered Celeste.

Kiyotaka stared into the crystal, tears flowing as he watched his father languish. “F-father…”

Mondo’s gaze flicked between Kiyotaka and the crystal ball.

“I’m gonna go get ‘m.” The sentence came out as naturally as a breath. He jumped to his feet and stormed out.

“Mondo, wait!” Kiyotaka chased after him, Hiro still in his hands.

He turned, his jacket-cape flapping as it followed him. “Why?!”

“My father doesn’t know about us! He still thinks I’m locked in the dungeon! He’ll surely try to kill you!”

Mondo said nothing. He just turned back around and kept going.

“Mondo, I know how horribly you feel, but becoming a martyr is not the way to solve it!”

The beast stopped for a moment. His striped tail twitched and he marched on. Kiyotaka followed him all the way to the door, yelling and crying, before he realized even he couldn’t sway him. Then he ran to a room with Hiro to watch the scene unfold.

The servants searched about the castle for him so they could watch as well. Celeste, with her 53 individual parts, slipped her Jack of Hearts into the first place that came to mind. And there he was, stooped right in front of Chihiro with his long cape scrunched behind him, holding Yasuhiro in his lap. She didn’t want to tell everyone else just yet, for the moment all she wanted to do was observe.

Kiyotaka watched the Mondo in the crystal ball run on all fours through the snow. The picture grew dimmer and dimmer the deeper he travelled into the woods. Then, he stood before his father, his coat a darker spot against the lightness of the snow. His ears twitched in a strange way, as if they picked up something Kiyotaka couldn’t.

 _“Please… help me up. I…”_ His father coughed again. He sounded far worse than the last time he heard him. The poor man...

He ignored whatever background noise he was trying to tune into. _“Don’t worry, old man, I gotcha...”_ He wrapped his arms around him and lifted him to his feet.

 _“I… I th-think I can walk ahead by myself…”_ he said, trying to put some distance between them. Mondo stiffened, alarmed by something unseen, and pulled him closer. Then, he sniffed the air.

His eyes narrowed. _“I smell… she-wolf.”_

 _“NOW!”_ shouted the voice of Mukuro Ikusaba, war hero and infamous huntress.

Not only did her musket flash, but so did dozens of others, illuminating the terrified faces of the townspeople. In that split second, Mondo moved to shield the father of his lover and duck. A chorus of gunfire boomed through the air as the picture abruptly cut out.

Kiyotaka gazed wide-eyed at his own reflection in the unlit ball. “M-Mondo…?”

His father had… set a trap for him. He and Ikusaba set a trap to kill Mondo. But he figured it out a touch too soon, and it forced Ikusaba’s hand. And now, both Mondo and his father were likely…

He let Hiro roll out of his lap. The clarvoyant’s face rematerialized. “Hey, uh, Taka...? Little dude...?”

“K-Kiyotaka…?” asked Chihiro.

Kiyotaka let out a scream-- an unnatural, unearthly scream from deep within him. Howls and sobs barreled out of his throat until it grew hoarse. It was the sorrowful sound of one who had everything ripped away from him. And to a certain enchantress, it was absolutely _delectable_. Her little diversion had become a well of despair in and of himself! It was like someone dropped a chocolate fountain in the middle of her palace, how could she possibly resist?!

Besides, for so long these idiots had the wrong person pegged as the one to break the spell. _Someone_ needed to face a consequence for that stupidity…

Celestia Ludenberg’s Jack of Hearts buckled at the middle. For the first time in literal years, she felt a physical sensation in her form of two-dimensional ink against cardstock. It was retching. Clouds of black smoke billowed from the eyes and mouth of her jack (a disheveled bunny doll) and built upon each other until the towering figure of the bear emerged from the plume.

A dark shadow cast over Kiyotaka, but he didn’t notice. He couldn’t hear how the gentle, concerned tones of Yasuhiro and Chihiro transformed into alarm and distress, pleading with him to get out of the way. The last sensation he felt was a terrible pain in his skull as something came down on his head, and the world became black.

* * *

Yasuhiro rolled nervously around the corridors, careful to dodge from the suits of armor marching to their stations. He stopped when he spotted the little ceramic white cat.

“Makoto! H-hey, how’s it hangin’?”

“It's, uh, hanging. Actually, it's a bit better than I thought, you know, given the circumstances.” He glanced over to the unconscious journal, flanked by a set of Celeste’s clubs. A red bookmark slipped from between her pages. “All of this was a bit much for Toko, though.”

Hiro winced in sympathy. He really didn’t want to deal with all this either.

“How’s Taka?”

“As fine as he can be. I told him to keep it chill and stay with Chihiro. ‘Stressing dulls your polish, ya know.’ That’s what I said.”

The two of them frowned. It was horrible what happened, but they unfortunately didn’t have the time to comfort Kiyotaka.

“How bad is it out there?” The question felt strange after knowing the answer to those sort of things automatically for years. It was pretty rude for Junko to cut him off…

“Pretty bad. I’m telling the guard we can’t deal lethal blows, but there’s so many out there…”

Commented Byakuya, “I told him that was a stupid thing to worry about, considering they brought it on themselves by forming a mob, but Kyoko pointed out that since that wolf changeling was there, Junko is behind this too. Casualties would spread her influence beyond these woods.”

“You’re gonna tell _her_ that, right?” For lack of hands, he switched his gaze to the journal for a moment to indicate who he was talking about.

“Unfortunately…”

He waddled off, and Hiro made his way to one of the lower windows to check the damage. A crowd of a little over a hundred stormed through the gates with pitchforks and torches and whatever weapons they could get their hands on. That wasn’t exactly a lot, but it was still nerve-racking, especially with the mighty master of the house missing in action.

“Oh God, Buddha, ghost of Howard Ashman-- get me the heck outta here!” he cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how y'all liking these twists? :)


	10. Kill The Beast!

Takaaki had thought he'd known so well who was the monster and who was the hero in this scenario. The horrid beast of stripe and horn and claw that held his child in chains was the perfect picture of wretchedness, almost as much as the might of Ikusaba was of triumph. But as he reeled from the huntress's betrayal, carried away from the raging swarm of townsfolk by the creature he planned to aid in killing, he didn't know what to think.

"She would've… she would've let me die. As soon as the plan turned sour, she didn't hesitate throwing me to the wolves..." he rambled, "I know the other villagers won't care if I'm living or dead, but I thought she might. At least in the sense of a soldier protecting people and country…"

The beast let out a single snort.

"You… you s-saved me… Why? I only ever tried to hurt you..."

It paused, both to answer the question and let itself breathe.

"Because I ain't a… a monster. That's... what your kid said about me."

Takaaki tilted his head, squinting. "He did?"

"Yeah. Him an' me, we, uh-- hit it off..." It spoke that remark almost sheepishly, then added on a more somber note, "An' I… I can't have his only family die on my watch. Ain't right."

Both fell quiet again. Then, the beast shook its head. "We gotta keep moving." It broke back into a sprint.

"Where are we going?"

"To the castle. I can't abandon that place and there's no way in hell you can make it back to the village by yerself. This is a backway, they won't know we're comin'. When we get there, find a room to hide in and lay low."

He took a second to process all of that, then gave him a curt nod. "Understood."

They came upon the backmost of the old stone walls that surrounded the palace. The beast let him go and rushed to a patch of thick vines that stretched the wall's whole height.

"Get on my back."

"What?"

"GET ON MY BACK!"

He did as he was told and it climbed up the vines with Takaaki in tow. They surmounted the wall and entered through the back door. They could hear the clatter of conflict even from that obscure place in the castle. Its lavender eyes flicked in one direction. It jerked that way before stopping itself. The beast offered some parting words: "Well, see ya. Try not to get yerself killed, ya hear?"

Takaaki cautiously watched it take a few steps. Then, working up his nerve, he called, “Wait!”

It halted and turned back to him.

“You’ve… you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, kid. I mean it.”

Its gaze lingered on him, then turned to the floor. He could sense the same sort of trepidation he felt when giving the compliment, wondering if the words held the same weight coming from his throat. But on the beast’s end, the dilemma was instead if such a sentiment was worth gracing its ears. Those soulful eyes flicked back to him a moment before it fled.

“Uh, thanks.”

With the beast gone, Takaaki kept his head low and he flew through the corridors. It was utter chaos. Vacant suits of armor fended off the attackers, blocking blows with iron polearms. A ball whizzed through the air, knocking several rioters square in the noggin through its initial hit and ricochets. A pack of cards fluttered of their own accord, accosting people like a swarm of locusts. Well-placed ink puddles made traversing the floors a nightmare. And that journal waving those scissors around seemed ready and downright thrilled to do some damage…

He may have been warming up to the beast, but the sentient housewares it apparently kept as company were overwhelming at the moment. Takaaki concealed himself in a place he had a hunch would be safe-- the room he took shelter in when he first came to the castle all that time ago-- due to one very specific possibility. That possibility was proven fact when he found his pistol and ammunition still on the ground. Staying by the unlit fireplace, he could use the brickwork to shield three sides of him, so any attacker would be forced to face him head-on (as the child of a hated political figure, these were the sort of things you thought about).

He apparently wasn’t the first to choose this room as a hideaway. A glowing orb rolled out from under the chair shortly after he got settled. At first the man in the orb lightly chided him for picking the same spot, as if they were playing a schoolyard game rather than in a potential life-or-death scenario, then he had a delayed reaction of shock before spinning out the room in a tizzy.

After that strange one-sided interaction, Takaaki hunkered down by the hearth. He sincerely hoped he didn’t have to come face-to-face with one of those things again. Sure, that crystal ball seemed cluelessly sincere, but he had seen the mayhem these items could cause firsthand. He was still shaken up by Mukuro’s treachery, thus uncertain of who-- or what, in this case-- he could trust.

He poured the powder into his gun, just in case. He sat in silence for a good, long while. Then he heard a sound. A miniscule scraping of metal against marble. Then, he saw something crawl across his shoe like an inchworm. He slapped his hand over it and pinched the item between his fingers as he held it up.

Dangling from his hand was a medal, the sort a person of high merit would pin to their breast. It was bronze, attached to a red and gold ribbon with a small black ring. Emblazoned on the medallion was a youthful face, with intense eyes and thick eyebrows...

“K...Kiyotaka?”

“Father!” The voice that rang from the emblem was overjoyed and tearful and unmistakably his son’s.

Takaaki was so alarmed that he dropped him as he reached to cover his mouth, the badge hitting the floor with a bright clink. He stooped low and quickly apologised, “I’m sorry, son, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me! I’m just… so very happy you’re okay! I came as soon as Hiro told me! Which was, erm, not very fast, considering my, uh... commemorative state.”

Gingerly, he picked him back up, laying him out on both of his palms. His thumb caressed the medallion's edge. “Taka… who did this to you? Was it that… beast?”

“No, father. He’s as much of a victim of this curse as I am. He would never have something like this happen to me…” He went on to gush about the beast named Mondo, about how sweet and caring he was despite how he appeared, and the black pit of regret that opened in Takaaki when he was rescued expanded.

Mondo, meanwhile, was searching for Kiyotaka in all the confusion. Unaware of his love’s transformation into a trinket, it seemed as if he evaporated in thin air. “C’mon, Taka!” He shouted, throwing open a random door, “The staff chased most of the mob off! You don’t gotta hide no more! You’re startin’ to scare--!”

_Bang!_

A bullet hole tore through the wood of the door just above his head. He whipped around and saw Mukuro at the end of the hall. She cast her gun aside and sprinted towards him on all fours, shifting to her wolf form. Her fangs clamped on the ruffles of his shirt collar, ripping it off so she could get a clear shot at his neck.

"Why the fuck are you doing this?!" He cried as he blocked another lunge with his arms, her claws shredding his sleeves. "You're not like Junko! You don't eat misery and shit, and you can come and go as you please! You don't gotta fight me!"

"I do, though! Because she's my sister! She's the only thing I have in this godforsaken world!"

She bit into his arm and he let out an anguished roar. He thrashed his head in agony and the side of his horn slammed into her skull, forcing her to let go. He fled to his chambers, past Sakura and Aoi and to the balcony.

Mukuro stalked closer, growling, "She is the only one who cares for a creature like me…"

Mondo seemed cornered, eyes darting about. Then, thinking quickly, he threw himself onto one of the lower sections of the roof. He landed with a boom, scattering the shingles beneath his paws. Heavy breathing rattled through his chest. He looked back up to the balcony and she gave chase, shifting to something between woman and canine, scurrying down the roof the longer and somewhat safer way.

He couldn't hurt her. No, he just… couldn't. And it wasn't just because his brother had always told him it was wrong for a man to hit a woman...

The Diamond Brother could see facets of himself and his struggles refracted in many places. One was Chihiro from so long ago, an inverted reflection angled impossibly high above him. Another was Kiyotaka when they first met, sacrificing himself for one that may not have thought he deserved it, echoes of Daiya in his determined expression making Mondo crumble. Then, himself again in Kiyotaka when he described his loneliness as they sat together in the snow. And here, now, he saw himself in Mukuro Ikusaba: not quite an animal, not quite a human, living under a cherished sibling's shadow and seeing no value in themselves.

If his heart held a shred of compassion for her, why couldn't it spare himself the same? It was ridiculous.

"But…" he breathed. He couldn't finish the self-rebuking thought before Mukuro was upon his own roof.

After confirming that Mondo had also survived the ambush, Kiyotaka desperately requested his father to take him to the prince. They looked high and low but could not find him. That is, until Makoto pointed them to an open window, where they could see at an angle Mukuro closing in on Mondo above them.

"He needs my help!" Kiyotaka bawled, "I have to get up there right now!"

"There's… there's no way I can make it in time!" Takaaki cried back.

Taka's face in relief scrunched up in frustration at their uselessness, then he was struck with inspiration and he opened his eyes once more. "Father, I have an idea. It's not very practical, in fact you might even think it mad, but it's the only thing that might work. You'll have to trust me."

Takaaki's own features softened. "Oh, Taka. You ought to know this by now: even if I have my reservations about what you do sometimes, know that I have complete faith in you."

Overseeing it all, Junko sat upon a cliff side overlooking the castle. An absurd crop of mushrooms surrounded her, having sprouted when she realized the mob fled with all its members still breathing, thus she couldn't ride the resulting grief out of this forest and into the wider world like a river to the sea. Now, however, she wasn't saddened. No, now she was foaming at the mouth. She was furious and bored and totally _starving_ . "Will _somebody_ fuckin' hit _somebody_?!" she screamed.

The enchantress got her wish.

A shot sounded, and Mukuro recoiled with a yap. Junko felt the shot, too, like pure pleasure pumped directly into her veins. Takaaki, his hands trembling, lowered his smoking gun. Mondo watched as Mukuro dug at her own eye and tossed the projectile away.

It landed before him, and it wasn't a bullet. It was a medal, its ribbon tattered and burned and its brooch pin now coated in blood.

He reached out and picked it up. "What the fuck?"

"Mondo! Mondo, it's me!" Kiyotaka squeaked.

“Taka?” His eyes locked on his bronze face, tears pricking their corners. “Taka… I… I’m so…”

“No!” His voice was stern. “You will not say ‘I’m so sorry’ to me! This was not your doing!”

“B-but! If I didn’t care about ya, it wouldn’t’ve made ya a target!”

“That doesn’t make this your fault!”

The rejection of his basest instinct to blame himself shook him to his foundations.

Taka continued, “Mondo, sometimes things happen that are outside of your control! It can be horrible to endure when fate deals you a rotten hand, I know the feeling all too well. But just in my case as yours, those circumstances do not define you! What defines you is what you make of those circumstances!”

“An’ what did I make, huh, what did I make?!” he snarled. Mondo couldn’t think of a single thing, and that angered and terrified him.

“You… you made me very happy. And when you finally faced your fears, you made Chihiro happy, too. You made cute little dog figurines and, yes, huge messes, but you fixed them when you could. You saved my father’s life while he was trying to end yours. In my mind, all that you made... adds up to you being a good person.”

He swallowed. “Bro, I… can’t just tell myself that an’ believe it. It’s not that simple.”

“Then believe _me._ Know that I’d only tell you something like that if it was the honest-to-goodness truth. After all, what did you say about me that first night?”

He sniffled. “You don’t bullshit.”

Junko’s nails stabbed into the heels of her palms with how tightly she clenched her fists. She could feel it, Prince Owada slowly slipping from her grasp, all because of that Ishimaru idiot. She knew she should have rendered him mute upon transforming him-- damn his delicious blubbering for making it slip her mind. And what was Mukuro doing? Standing there with her thumb up her ass?

That’s it. She was taking matters into her own hands. She had one more trick up her sleeve to bring him back to her.

In bear form, she appeared behind her sister. “Alright, I’m starting to get sick of this. I invoke the mighty summon spell! Let’s skewer this furry fuck!”

Mondo heard a massive rumbling and braced himself, clutching Taka tight. The weaponry of his royal guard, their spears and polearms and axes, flew from the knights’ grips through stone and mortar, all clustering on and piercing a particular region of the roof in one split second.

With shaking breath, Mondo pried open his eyes.

There, in a congregation of instruments of destruction, was the mangled body of Mukuro Ikusaba, the untouchable soldier. The weapons punctured her at all sorts of angles, running clean through flesh and bone effortlessly. Pink dripped down their length. The changeling, her fur flaking off and becoming fully a woman in her dying moments, let out a sharp gasp and nothing more.

Mondo stood there in silent horror, transfixed. Junko lurked out from behind the ghastly display in her human guise. Her expression displayed complete apathy.

"I gotta say, man, you overhyped it," she said with a shrug.

"Wh… what...?"

"Oh, don't give me that, you _know_ what I'm talking about. Killing your big sibling. You made it out like it was some terrible thing, and for maybe a split second it was, but it passed way too quickly."

"Your… big…"

"That's right." Her spectacles reappeared. "She was older by about a few minutes. Not that there's anyone keeping track."

"Why… why the fuck would you…?"

"Isn't it obvious?" She crept closer and smiled up at him. "It's because of you, Mondo. That despair you felt after leading your brother to his doom, it was so tasty I had to replicate it for myself! You're a real inspiration! A creature of darkness like myself could learn a lot from the likes of you!"

She could feel his heart drop in his chest when she said that. An inspiration to something like her? The dumbass was sure to believe that and fall right back under her sway, curling up in the comfort of his miserable cage.

But he opened his paw again and looked at Kiyotaka. His gaze lingered on him, then drifted back to her.

"Oh, shut the hell up."

He said it with contempt, but it wasn't the sort of temper tantrum the enchantress was used to.

"Beg pardon?"

"I _said_ shut the hell up. I'm done listening to you."

"Oh, that's very mature of you. Stick your fingers in your ears and I'll go away. Just like how you dealt with Chihiro for so long. You haven't changed a--"

"You lie like a fuckin' rug," he countered. "I've changed so goddamn much. I got better, kinder, and... stronger. So much stronger..."

Her eyes narrowed. "You're just parroting your buddies. You don't actually believe that."

His mouth felt dry. "M... maybe not… exactly. But…" He gazed back at Taka, who smiled warmly up at him. "I trust them. I trust their judgement. There's… somethin' there… somethin' in me that I just can't see. Who'da thought?"

Taka's voice cracked as if he was sobbing with joy, but his form allowed him no tears to shed. "Who indeed…"

Jesus Christ, she wanted to vomit. "Oh, stop it! Stop lying to yourself and give in to the truth!" She stomped her foot. "You're nothing! You're worthless! You're disgusting! You're not good for anything besides being _my_ food!" After the verbal lashing, she tossed her head arrogantly, crowning herself again. "Now what do you have to say about that?"

He didn't say a word. Not a single word. Mondo merely made a small gesture. He pinned the medal Kiyotaka to the tied knot of his old coat's sleeves, directly over his heart. It was a symbolic action, one that spoke volumes: that he accepted that he was a person who was indeed worthy of love and support. And with it, Junko felt the prince slip away.

Then, she felt something delightfully wretched bloom within her. It was all consuming and intoxicating. She flushed and cackled and drool ran down her chin. Mondo and Taka watched her with unease.

"Oh, the agony of defeat!" she moaned, "It's the best thing I've ever tasted!"

The enchantress staggered backward in her ecstasy, past the mutilated remains of her kin, all the way to the edge. Her weight put strain on that portion of whatever room or hall it corresponded to inside, and cracks began to form between all the newly minted holes. Junko, Mukuro, and the section they occupied crumbled and plummeted down, down, down.

They continued staring in direction the fairies once stood, at a complete loss for what to do. Then, it started to rain.

"Well that's... uncharacteristic of this season," commented Taka.

Mondo looked up and saw the dark clouds brewing. To confirm his suspicions, thunder rumbled through the atmosphere.

"Shit. Ya might wanna hold on to something," he warned as he laid himself down, "This is gonna hurt like a bitch."

"What do you--"

A bolt of lightning sliced through the clouds and cut directly into the both of them. Even after readying himself, Mondo howled in torment and Kiyotaka shrieked. Flesh bubbled and metal liquefied.

And then, everything went white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everybody in this fic be like  
> 🐯🎖️🧵  
> 🐼🐺  
> 🐈🔍🔐  
> ⚾💃  
> 🃏🖋️📕  
> 🏺💮🔮  
> and a very confused middle-aged man


	11. Human Again

Takaaki watched in terror and awe as the interior surrounding him was encased in jolts of electricity. He crouched to the floor with arms over his head to protect himself, though the energy completely passed over him as if trapping him in a cage. As it crackled and popped in his ears, locked away memories sparked into his mind. This… was the estate of the Owadas, who ruled a very small kingdom tucked in a dangerous wood where others dare not tread. The rocky, treacherous region had soil abundant with precious stones, which the kingdom became well-known for, along with their fearsome guard and a fine stock of horses bred by the royals themselves. He thinks… his own family may have owned some of their jewels before they were forced to sell them…

The village they resided in wasn't even part of their kingdom, he recalled, it was under the jurisdiction of the Owadas. That was why it seemed so remote.

Takaaki gasped for air. It was all so much to process.

The energy dissipated after a while. Takaaki rose to his feet, observing how much brighter and cleaner the castle appeared even from just the hall he was in. The clouds had cleared, and the pale hues of sunrise poured in through the windows. It was as if the place had been reborn.

"Hey! Watch out! Comin' through!" croaked a voice, before the speaker fumbled past him and immediately slammed into the ground. He spoke into the marble, his wild red hair bristling, "Oh yeah! Pain! I did _not_ miss this part!"

Takaaki moved aside as a young lady with long blue hair carefully strode beside the redhead. "Leon, I told you to take some time to readjust! I knew this was going to happen!"

"Jeez, you and your intuition…" Leon grumbled.

Another set of strangers made their way out of a room.

"So, Tony the Tiger finally got some?" asked a girl with long braids and an absurdly long tongue.

The young man in green pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up to his forehead. "No, no. I know you technically weren't there, but we established that wasn't the end condition."

"Well, whatever! I don't really care how it happened! I'm just glad you're a cute boy again, 'cause I'm lots of fucked up things, but I ain't an objectophile!"

He groaned and they continued walking. All these people seemed to be heading in the same direction.

"Hey, uh, Mr. Ishimaru?"

He turned to find yet another young man, this one very short and with mousy brown hair with a very prominent cowlick.

"Wait…" Takaaki breathed, his brow knitting. He recognized that cowlick.

"Mr. Ishimaru, would you like to come with us? We're trying to get your son and Mondo off the roof."

Takaaki blinked. It took a good couple seconds before what the lad said actually sunk in. He shook himself, pulling himself out of his stupor. "Um! Yes, yes, uh, of course. Lead the way."

The former maneki-neko did, and before he followed Takaaki shook his head again. This whole thing kept getting stranger and stranger…

Kiyotaka woke again with his head spinning and stomach queasy-- which was a good thing, because that meant he had those body parts again. Air entered his lungs and his limbs tingled from his blood flow only just starting up again. His face was snug in the folds of Mondo's shirt and he held the jacket knot in a vice grip, which he slackened as soon as he was aware of it. The chest he laid upon rose and felt at a steady pace, and the heartbeat was pleasantly even. Kiyotaka nuzzled his face right next to that heart, letting its rhythm hum through his skull. When he had the strength, he lifted his head up.

He was met with the sight of a familiar stranger laying underneath him, bathed in the golden light of dawn. It was a man much smaller than Kiyotaka's beast, but still bulky in his own right. He had tanned skin and lush eyelashes and a strong, sharp jaw. At the moment his face was in repose, his mouth slightly parted as breath flowed past his lips. He was so... handsome. Beautiful. Taka could scarcely believe this man was buried deep beneath those fangs and fur.

"Mondo…" he whispered.

The man's eyelids fluttered open and both sets of eyes locked. Rubies met amethysts, and everything was right with the world.

Mondo reached up to Kiyotaka's face, squishing his cheek. He chuckled hoarsely, "I thought I'd never see your red-ass face again, man..."

He noticed his hand-- that it was _his hand_ , not a tiger's paw-- and lay there entranced by it as he took it from Taka's cheek and turned it in the air. "Bro…" He reached for his own face, rubbing his now hairless cheeks. His smile was astronomically wide. "Bro! I'm… I'm me again! This magic bullshit is finally over!"

Kiyotaka returned his grin, but it faltered when his gaze turned up. His brows knitted upwards in worry. "Oh no! Bro, don't speak so soon! Something must have gone wrong! You still have your horn!"

"Taka. That's my hair."

His eyes widened. "Oh! It looks like that on purpose?"

On most occasions, Mondo would be offended by that, but Kiyotaka's earnestness and his overwhelming relief that he was disenchanted caused him to laugh uproariously. He almost rolled over, but his stomach lurched when he remembered their precarious position. Thankfully, Taka kicked out and gripped the shingles with the sole of his boot.

"Yeah, we... oughta get down from here…" He glared over in the fairies' direction, hoping not to share the same fate.

"Yes, that seems a fair idea," he muttered quickly.

They carefully trekked across the roof. They neared the balcony, but with Mondo's lessened height he couldn't quite reach it. Then, an arm stretched down towards them, attached to a muscular woman with long white hair. She, along with a smaller woman with a ponytail, helped the pair up.

"Damn is it good to see you two! How've ya been, Sakura?"

"Unfortunately sedentary, but thanks to you, that is no longer the case." She gave him a small smile. "I cannot express my gratitude to you enough."

Meanwhile, Aoi and Kiyotaka finally exchanged formalities, Aoi mentally writing his name down on her palm.

"Oh, by the way, don't sweat the whole butt touching thing! It's cool!"

"Ah!" His whole face turned red. "I'm so sorry once again, Miss Asahina!"

"Hey! I just told you not to worry about it!" she said, puffing her cheeks in facetious annoyance.

The rest of the castle staff were gathered at the entrance of the balcony. The petite form of Chihiro burst from the collective.

"Mondo!" They squeaked through tears, launching into a bear hug, "I was so worried! I'm glad you're okay!"

"Aw, Chi, don't cry!" He bent down to wipe their face, but he noticed something beneath their bangs and brushed the hair from their forehead. Stretching from the top right side of their head to the center just above the eyebrow was a set of four claw mark scars.

"Mondo, it's okay," they reminded him, "It doesn't hurt."

"I know, I just…" He was getting choked up. "I'm jus' glad I... helped ya when I did." He wrapped his arms around them tight.

Kiyotaka glanced over the sea of faces, foreign but at the same time he was so well acquainted with the inhabitants that he could mostly distinguish them in their human state. There were Hiro, Sayaka, Chihiro, and Celestia, of course, who had their vistages on their hexed forms (and Celeste's cat, who apparently had been cursed alongside her). There was Makoto with that stubborn lock of hair, Leon with his face pierced to oblivion like the skin of that ball, and Byakuya with his green suit and silver-rimmed glasses that were once his key. The one amongst them that drew his attention, however, was the only one who was never an object at all. As if he had been waiting for permission, his father stepped forward. Kiyotaka immediately embraced him.

Takaaki was stiff at first, then relaxed and ran his fingers through his son's hair. "Taka… I have... no idea what happened here today, but I'm so happy that you're yourself again. I… don't know what I would do if you were stuck like that..."

"I'd venture to say that you would polish me regularly and display me above the mantle."

A beat.

"That… that was a joke."

"I know."

They stayed like that for a while as the others talked and laughed and soaked in the relief of finally being free. Once he and Chihiro were done, Mondo finally untied his jacket from his neck and slipped his arms through the sleeves. He fluffed it so it sat in just the right way. It fit exactly as it had years ago, unlike the other articles he wore. As he rubbed his hand along his right sleeve's embroidery, Taka waved him over.

"Come, come Mondo! I want you two to actually introduce yourselves like gentlemen!"

The idea got him flustered. Aside from the coat, he felt he looked like shit. His pants were baggy and had a hole for a non-existent tail, his shirt was in tatters, and he wasn't even wearing shoes!

Hina shoved him in the side. "Go get 'em, no-longer-a-tiger!"

He stumbled towards them, blushing. He glared back at her in irritation for a moment, to which she responded with a quick thumbs up.

"Your highness," Takaaki bowed his head, "it's an honor to make your acquaintance."

"Uh, yeah. Nice… nice to talk to ya in, ya know, less fucked up conditions." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, and was briefly confused as to why there was no fur there. "Er, sorry about the dungeon thing..."

He did chuckle at this, which changed again into quiet coughs. "No, no it's quite alright, I should be the one apologizing. I tried to kill you on two separate occasions..."

"Oh, isn't that lovely? It's all water under the bridge now!" Kiyotaka proclaimed, clapping both of them on the shoulder. "You two are my favorite people in the world! There's nothing I want more than for you to get along!"

His blush grew even rosier. "Damn, I'm one of your favorites?"

"Why, of course you are! I love you!" He hopped up and gave him a kiss.

When they parted, he sputtered with his whole face tomato red, "OH?! WE'RE JUST GONNA DO IT RIGHT HERE?! RIGHT IN FRONT 'A YER OL' MAN?!"

Taka giggled. "I never realized with all the hair on your face how easily flustered you get, bro! It's adorable!"

"ADORABLE?! I AIN'T ADORABLE! I'M A FUCKIN' STUD!"

Taka saw his bluster for it was. "An _adorable_ stud."

Takaaki let out a bemused puff again, and yet again it was trailed by coughs, these ones much more phlegmy and loud. Mondo got over himself and placed his hand on his arm.

"Hey, why don't ya get yerself out of the chill, huh?" He pitched his head over the crowd. "HEY, TAKEMICHI!"

The tiny suit of armor pushed his way through, and for a second it seemed almost as if the hex's reversal passed him by, but he lifted his helmet's visor to reveal brown eyes and fluffy blonde bangs underneath. "Yeah, boss?"

"Get this bastard a room to rest in. Ya know, a real one, not a cell."

"Gotcha, boss." He took Takaaki's hand and led him away. Afterwards, there was more hugging and tears and jokes cracked, then the staff gradually filtered out, leaving Kiyotaka and Mondo alone in the latter's bedroom. The lifting of the spell returned it to its former splendor, with the grand canopy bed and the portrait of the Diamond Brothers returned to the wall and whole once more. The prince flopped into the plush bed, his beloved right behind.

"Damn, does it feel good knowin' Hiro an' Sakura an' Hina ain't sittin' there watchin' me!" He said as he stretched. "Or some bit 'a Celeste…"

"She seems the only one inclined to spy…" Taka commented as he sat down.

They cuddled up together as they watched the sun take its place in the sky, shining a bright new day upon them. Kiyotaka slotted between Mondo's arm and torso as if he was born to fit there. Like the day of the first snowfall when they sat by the fire, the bond between them felt fundamentally altered.

The prince said in a hushed voice, "Hey. I… I know this is a bit sudden… but… you think maybe one day we could…?"

The full question wasn't spoken, yet it still hung in the air.

Kiyotaka's eyelids drifted closed. "Mm, well… someday, I believe. I will take you up on that… someday. I certainly love you, but as I told my father before, I would like to earn a title rather than marry into one. I still have a promise I have to fulfill. You understand, right?"

"Course I do." He nestled his chin in his hair. "You'll stick around a lil' bit before ya go chasin' those dreams though, right?"

"You know I will, bro." He laid his hand over Mondo's heart, his fingers curling. "I've barely made a dent in that library. There's still much to learn here. Much, much to learn…"

Kiyotaka let out a joyful, sleepy hum. Mondo kissed him on the brow, feeling his own wakefulness floating away from him. They both had quite the night.

Thus, the pair spent the first morning of the rest of their lives together snoozing away, and such a morning was well-earned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for reading! I'm glad I could share this story with all of you!


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